Dubai retailers optimistic despite global economic headwinds

Dubai will see retail sector growing by 8.1 percent per year until 2020, experts said here Tuesday at the 10th World Retail Congress.

Delivering a key note to 1,200 delegates at the three-day annual World Retail Congress 2016, Majid Saif Al-Ghurair, the chairman of the Dubai Chamber for Commerce and Industry said retail sales in Dubai in 2015 reached 35.4 billion dollars in 2015, up 7.7 percent year on year.

By 2020 when Dubai host World Expo, Al-Ghurair said retail sales in the sheikhdom are expected to cross 52 billion dollars.

Ian McGarrigle, founder and chairman of the World Retail Congress, said that customer loyalty, online channel growth and product development are the top three issues retail CEOs across the globe would focus on in the coming years.

The index conducted by Monash Business School, Australia, stated that optimism in the global retail market dipped to 0.9 for 2016, down from 1.3 in 2015.

Nevertheless, despite the slump in oil price and a decline of Russian tourists in Dubai due to the economic crisis in Russia, Rajiv Suri, CEO for fashion business at Dubai's retail giant Majid Al Futtaim said sales for fashion across the group doubled in the first quarter of 2016 compared to the corresponding period in 2015.

Beside population growth, tourism is poised to fuel retail sales further, Al-Ghurair added. Dubai welcomed 14.2 million tourists last year, a sharp 7.5 percent increase year on year.

For the six-month Expo 2020, the sheikhdom plans to welcome up to 25 million tourists.

Dubai is now ranked second to London in relation to density of global brands per retail square meter, said Majid Al-Futtaim's chief executive Alain Bejjani. Endit