Starting a Business in The Middle East, Back to Qatar and How to Attract the Best Talent

Welcome to my newsletter!

This week's focus:

Starting a business in The UAE and Saudi Arabia: The realities of setting up a business in the Middle East – including potential costs.

Back to Qatar: This week I was in Qatar, The World Cup is over, but the buzz is back.

How to attract the best talent: Is salary your only option to tempt top talent? Nope, there is a simple framework that can help.

Starting a Business in The UAE and Saudi Arabia

I started my business in the UAE over 15 years ago – since then a lot has changed, the process is now a lot easier, with far less hurdles to jump through. 

However, having just been through the process all over again in Saudi Arabia I was transported back to the early days of setting up in Dubai where everything just felt rather complicated.

UAE

In 2024 Dubai is a city that has positioned itself as one of the easiest and most desirable places to set up a business.

The Dubai Government has taken steps to introduce new regulations that support entrepreneurs and investors to make Dubai the home of their business.

A far cry from when I arrived in 2008 and you needed a local partner to be able to open a business most areas.

Now Dubai attracts businesses from all over the world with the allure of zero / low tax, access to top talent from across the globe and its ideal position as a gateway to the East and West. 

Of course, Dubai isn’t the only option when it comes to opening a business in the UAE.

There are many other Emirates that you can base your business from, some with even lower barriers to entry than Dubai.

Set up costs across the UAE are pretty low – you can obtain a licence from anywhere between 7-30k AED which is around 2-8k USD.

Saudi Arabia