Just weeks before its opening, the Abu Dhabi World Financial Market, the new Abu Dhabi Free Zone, is the ‘talk of the town’ here inside the UAE.

Located on the Al Maryah Island, northeast from the Abu Dhabi city centre and covering the area of 1.6 million square meters, this new financial free zone is expected to enter into a tough competition with the existing Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), Bahrain Financial Harbour, Qatar Financial Centre in Doha and King Abdullah Financial District in Riyadh.
UAE free zones facilitate businesses to operate with full foreign ownership while remaining subject to the commercial and civil laws of the Emirate in which they are based.
In some cases, free zones enforce their own internal regulations in addition to the general framework while certain municipal regulations and requirements don’t apply. However, the financial free zones enjoy the freedom of creating of laws and regulations of their own.
This means that the Abu Dhabi World Financial Market will be able to develop a new legal and regulatory framework under which companies active within the jurisdiction will operate.
Abu Dhabi World Financial Market will be the emirate’s fifth free zone. The existing four are Khalifa Industrial Zone Abu Dhabi, the media hub twofour54, Masdar City and Abu Dhabi Airport Free Zone.
Especially the proximity of DIFC, located just some 90 car minutes far from Abu Dhabi, has been discussed a lot. The critics fear lack of space for 2 major financial centres in a rather small area.
The ones who favour the new project counter the criticism by comparing the competition model e.g. with Europe where many financial hubs peacefully co exist next to each other. While London is known for its focus on asset management, Luxembourg provides the domicile for funds and Ireland is being used for their administration. The competition and efforts to attract new clients will in fact force both organizations to perform as efficient and cheaply as possible.
The rivalry between Abu Dhabi and Dubai goes far, and many successful projects were brought into life because of that. Think about Etihad Airways, established in Abu Dhabi to face the competition with Dubai’s Emirates Airline. But there are many more examples of a fruitful interaction between the two emirates: while Dubai attracts foreign tourists by the luxurious hotels built along the coastline, Abu Dhabi ‘steals’ them to show them local branches of Louvre and Guggenheim museums.
The construction works on Sowwah Square, Al Maryah Island’s central business district, are almost finished and despite the criticism, the four towers and a lower central building of the Abu Dhabi World Financial Market start welcoming their new tenants already. The name plates already witness presence of companies like Deloitte, General Electric, JP Morgan and others.
Time will tell if the new Abu Dhabi Free Zone will be a success…
 
Freemont Group is located in Jumeirah Lakes Tower in Dubai, we help entrepreneurs set up their business in the Free Zones of the UAE. Visit our RAK Offshore and Dubai Free Zone page to find out how we can assist you, or your company.
 
Did you know that you can use a RAK Offshore company as holding company to set up free zone companies in the UAE?