Dubai’s Higher Committee for the Development of the Economic and Financial Sector reviewed sector indicators and proposed directions for positioning the emirate as a gold hub on 8 October. Emirates News Agency (WAM) reported figures for financial-centre rankings, virtual-asset service providers, the Dubai Financial Market and the Dubai International Financial Centre. They do not cover one common period: some relate to September 2026 rankings, others to the third quarter or first nine months, while the gold-trade figures cover 2025. That timing matters. The figures should not be treated as one comparable measure of growth across the same interval.

WAM said Dubai moved from fifth to first in FinTech in the September 2026 Global Financial Centres Index, from fourth to second in Professional Services and from eighth to sixth in reputation. These are rankings within an index, not measures of sector revenue or productivity. The number of licensed Virtual Asset Service Providers under the Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority reached 52, assets under management AED28 billion, and trading volume over the previous 12 months approximately AED7.43 trillion, according to WAM. Trading volume is not an asset stock or capital inflow; the indicator also reflects the activity covered by licensed providers.

The Dubai Financial Market’s capitalisation stood at AED993.1 billion at the end of the third quarter of 2026. Average daily trading value rose 24.5%, and institutional investors accounted for 71% of traded value. The exchange added 55,462 investors in the first nine months, 72.1% of them international. DIFC was reported to have more than 10,000 active registered companies, including 592 wealth and asset-management firms and 1,933 FinTech and innovation firms. These measures use different denominators and periods. On their own they do not establish market depth, risk levels or the durability of activity over time.

The committee also reviewed six proposed strategic directions spanning the gold value chain: supply, refining, trade, storage, finance, price discovery, digital tokenisation and retail. WAM reported Dubai foreign gold trade of about AED1 trillion in 2025, up 60% year on year. Physical gold trading in the UAE was around 2,750 tonnes, while Dubai’s estimated share of global trade was 13–15%. Value flows and physical tonnage are separate measures; the UAE-wide volume should not be attributed to Dubai, and the share is a range rather than a precise point estimate. The committee approved an implementation committee, a governance step that does not mean the strategy is complete or has changed prices.