DIFC registers 40 new firms in Q1 - Emirates Business 24|7

The Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) registered 40 new companies in the first quarter, a "significant" increase from the same period last year, a top official said.

This brings the current number of DIFC-registered companies to 899, five per cent higher than the 2009 total of 859. Last year's tally was 15 per cent higher than the 744 recorded in 2008.

"The first quarter saw somewhere around 40 new companies in the DIFC," Abdulla Mohammed Al Awar, Chief Executive Officer of the DIFC Authority, told Emirates Business. "We have seen that most institutions are now in the recovery, rather than survival, mode." He did not reveal how many companies had been registered in Q1 2009.