DIWAN · REGISTER
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Studies & Intelligence
Intelligence with context. Foresight that shapes decisions. The DIWAN register publishes commissioned studies, briefings, and market intelligence across sectors and jurisdictions.
AllTrade & Capital 48Law & Regulation 22Country Files 181Demand & Buyers 38Platforms & Growth 154Brand & Positioning 2Commodities 21Business 43Technology 159Cyber Security 3
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United Arab Emirates 22
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Israel 2
Liberia 2
Malaysia 2
Mexico 2
Netherlands 2
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Zimbabwe 2
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Georgia 1
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Malta 1
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Philippines 1
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Sint Maarten (Dutch part) 1
Slovak Republic 1
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Spain 1
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Sudan 1
Suriname 1
Sweden 1
Syrian Arab Republic 1
Tajikistan 1
Tanzania 1
Timor-Leste 1
Togo 1
Trinidad and Tobago 1
Tunisia 1
Turkey 1
Turkmenistan 1
Turks and Caicos Islands 1
Tuvalu 1
Ukraine 1
United Kingdom 1
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Vanuatu 1
Venezuela, RB 1
Vietnam 1
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West Bank and Gaza 1
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Zambia 1
United Arab Emirates 22Saudi Arabia 19Qatar 11Singapore 9Oman 4Bahrain 2Dominican Republic 2Egypt 2France 2Germany 2Israel 2Liberia 2Malaysia 2Mexico 2Netherlands 2Pakistan 2Switzerland 2Zimbabwe 2Albania 1Algeria 1American Samoa 1Andorra 1Angola 1Antigua and Barbuda 1Argentina 1Aruba 1Australia 1Austria 1Azerbaijan 1Bahamas, The 1Bangladesh 1Barbados 1Belarus 1Belize 1Bermuda 1Bhutan 1Bolivia 1Bosnia and Herzegovina 1Brazil 1British Virgin Islands 1Brunei Darussalam 1Bulgaria 1Burundi 1Cabo Verde 1Cambodia 1Canada 1Cayman Islands 1Central African Republic 1Chad 1Channel Islands 1Chile 1China 1Congo, Dem. Rep. 1Congo, Rep. 1Costa Rica 1Croatia 1Cuba 1Curacao 1Cyprus 1Czechia 1Denmark 1Dominica 1Ecuador 1Equatorial Guinea 1Eritrea 1Estonia 1Eswatini 1Fiji 1Finland 1French Polynesia 1Gabon 1Gambia, The 1Georgia 1Gibraltar 1Greece 1Greenland 1Grenada 1Guam 1Guatemala 1Guinea 1Guyana 1Haiti 1Hong Kong SAR, China 1Hungary 1India 1Indonesia 1Iran, Islamic Rep. 1Ireland 1Isle of Man 1Italy 1Jamaica 1Jordan 1Kazakhstan 1Kiribati 1Korea, Dem. People's Rep. 1Korea, Rep. 1Kosovo 1Kuwait 1Kyrgyz Republic 1Lao PDR 1Latvia 1Lesotho 1Libya 1Lithuania 1Luxembourg 1Macao SAR, China 1Malawi 1Malta 1Mauritania 1Mauritius 1Monaco 1Mongolia 1Montenegro 1Morocco 1Mozambique 1Myanmar 1Naoero 1Nepal 1New Caledonia 1New Zealand 1Niger 1Nigeria 1North Macedonia 1Northern Mariana Islands 1Palau 1Panama 1Papua New Guinea 1Paraguay 1Peru 1Philippines 1Poland 1Puerto Rico (US) 1Romania 1Rwanda 1Samoa 1San Marino 1Senegal 1Sierra Leone 1Sint Maarten (Dutch part) 1Slovak Republic 1Slovenia 1Solomon Islands 1South Africa 1South Sudan 1Spain 1Sri Lanka 1St. Kitts and Nevis 1St. Lucia 1St. Martin (French part) 1St. Vincent and the Grenadines 1Sudan 1Suriname 1Sweden 1Syrian Arab Republic 1Tajikistan 1Tanzania 1Timor-Leste 1Togo 1Trinidad and Tobago 1Tunisia 1Turkey 1Turkmenistan 1Turks and Caicos Islands 1Tuvalu 1Ukraine 1United Kingdom 1Uruguay 1Vanuatu 1Venezuela, RB 1Vietnam 1Virgin Islands (U.S.) 1West Bank and Gaza 1Yemen, Rep. 1Zambia 1Demand & Buyers
Photo · janith devinda / Unsplash
Legal review
What the Gulf Actually Asks: Incorporation, Directors' Duties and Exit Costs in the GCC
A demand-driven legal review answering the questions readers put to the platform most — mainland vs ADGM vs DIFC, what boards owe, and what employment exits cost
Reader demand on the platform clusters on three questions: where to incorporate in the GCC, what directors owe once incorporated, and what employment exits cost. This study answers all three — a six-door comparison of UAE mainland, ADGM, DIFC, Saudi Arabia, QFC and Bahrain/Oman; the ADGM directors'-duties framework in plain language; and the notice and end-of-service formulas for DIFC, ADGM and the UAE mainland — with indicative costs and a decision playbook by profile.
≈46%SHARE OF READER QUESTIONS ABOUT FORMATION & JURISDICTION CHOICE
≈ USD 1,000ADGM TECH START-UP LICENCE, PER YEAR
14 daysDIFC NOTICE FOR MOST TENURES (3 MONTHS–5 YEARS)
Photo · Riyas Mohammed / Unsplash
Legal review
How the Gulf Hires and Lets Go — The Employment Edition
Third reading of the Ask-desk demand signal: gratuity, notice, savings schemes and nationalisation quotas — the employment rulebook actually in force across the GCC in 2026, and what it costs to get it wrong
Readers of the legal platform keep asking a third family of questions after formation and directors' duties: how to hire, pay out and let go. This edition answers the recurring asks — end-of-service gratuity, notice periods, the quiet shift from accrued gratuity to funded savings (DEWS and the UAE federal scheme), the 2025 Saudi labour-law amendments, ADGM's 2024 Employment Regulations, and the Emiratisation penalty escalator — with worked numbers and a 90-day employer playbook.
~1 in 5ASK-DESK QUERIES CONCERNING EMPLOYMENT, TERMINATION OR NOTICE
5.83% → 8.33%DEWS / UAE SAVINGS-SCHEME CONTRIBUTION (FIRST 5 YEARS → AFTER)
7–90 daysDIFC STATUTORY NOTICE SPAN BY TENURE
Photo · Unsplash
Legal review
GCC Directors' Duties: The Governance Edition
One board seat, three legal families — what Gulf directors personally owe in 2026, and what breach now actually costs
The fourth edition in the demand series answers the second-largest question cluster on the legal platform (≈20% of reader queries): what do directors and managers personally owe, and when does the company's problem become theirs? The answer has changed. Between the Dubai Court of Cassation's AED 152m personal award against a vice-chairman and CEO, the UAE bankruptcy law's shadow-director reach, KSA's 2022 law with the region's first express business-judgment defence, and the NMC proceedings in ADGM — where judgment on civil fraud claims against the founder and former CEO was reserved on 3 July 2026 after a 15-week trial and a US$600m mid-closing settlement by Bank of Baroda — personal liability in the Gulf has moved from paper risk to enforced norm. This study maps the duties across mainland UAE, ADGM, DIFC and Saudi Arabia, prices the breach, and gives five board seats a 90-day protection playbook.
US$600mSETTLED BY BANK OF BARODA DURING CLOSING ARGUMENTS OF THE NMC TRIAL IN ADGM, JULY 2026 — WITHOUT ADMISSION OF LIABILITY
AED 152mAWARDED PERSONALLY AND JOINTLY AGAINST A FORMER VICE-CHAIRMAN/CEO AND SUBSIDIARY MANAGER — DUBAI COURT OF CASSATION, APPEAL 866 OF 2024
≈20%SHARE OF READER QUERIES ON THE LEGAL PLATFORM THAT CONCERN DIRECTORS' DUTIES AND GOVERNANCE — THE SECOND-LARGEST DEMAND CLUSTER
Photo · Hush Naidoo Jade Photography / Unsplash
Feasibility
The GCC Healthcare Gold Rush: Private Capital, Mandatory Insurance and the Provider Gap
Six-system benchmark, four mandate engines, a 2030 bed-gap model and a capital playbook for the most oversubscribed sector in the Gulf
Every GCC state has now switched on, or is arming, a mandatory health-insurance engine — Abu Dhabi (2006), Dubai (2014), the Northern Emirates (2025), Kuwait (2025), Oman (phasing), Saudi Arabia (13.2m private lives and doubling premiums to 2030) — while the region operates 1.3–2.3 hospital beds per 1,000 people against Germany's 7.8 and the OECD's 4.3. This study benchmarks the four buyer markets against Germany and Singapore, sizes the provider gap to 2030 (Saudi estimates alone range 8,500–27,000 beds), maps the private-capital wave (PureHealth's $3.5bn of European acquisitions, the $1bn Aster GCC buyout, three Saudi IPOs 64–119× oversubscribed), prices greenfield-versus-acquisition entry, and stress-tests the one risk the gold-rush narrative underweights: reimbursement.
US$159bnGCC HEALTH SPEND BY 2029 (ALPEN CAPITAL, 7.8% CAGR)
8,500–27,000RANGE OF ESTIMATES FOR EXTRA SAUDI BEDS NEEDED BY ~2030
119×INSTITUTIONAL OVERSUBSCRIPTION, FAKEEH CARE IPO (2024)
Photo · Jeffrey Eisen / Unsplash
Masterplan
Feeding the Gulf: The Food-Security Investment Map 2026–2030
Where sovereign capital is pulling private money — UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar benchmarked against the Netherlands and Israel, and the four-segment stack priced
Gulf food-security capital has moved upstream: over US$7 billion of verified sovereign and state-linked deals since 2020 now target the grain trade itself, while domestic production consolidates around what survives the desert P&L. This study benchmarks the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar against their two explicit reference systems — the Netherlands and Israel — then prices the four-segment investable stack: greenhouse-first controlled-environment agriculture, sovereign-anchored aquaculture, cash-yielding cold chain, and alternative proteins as a regulatory call option under Abu Dhabi's 2025 halal-integrated novel-food framework. It closes with the four co-investment structures that repeat across every disclosed transaction, and a candid risk register.
US$7bn+VERIFIED SOVEREIGN & STATE-LINKED AGRI-FOOD COMMITMENTS SINCE 2020
>90%SHARE OF UAE FOOD SUPPLY THAT IS IMPORTED
US$23.7BMEA COLD-CHAIN MARKET BY 2034 (FROM US$13.1B IN 2025)
Photo · Dayne Topkin / Unsplash
Customer research
Easy to Start, Hard to Keep Clean: The UAE SME Formation and Compliance Market
Formation venues compete on price and speed; the durable cost of owning a UAE company now sits in the tax-and-filing stack that follows
The UAE remains one of the cheapest and fastest places in the Gulf to incorporate, with entry licenses from roughly AED 6,000 and approval in days. Since corporate tax took effect in June 2023, however, the recurring compliance line — registration, bookkeeping, VAT and corporate tax filings — has become broadly venue-independent and often exceeds the annual license renewal itself. This study benchmarks five formation venues against Saudi and Bahraini references and sizes the services market that keeps the country's ~557,000 SMEs clean.
~557,000SMES OPERATING IN THE UAE AT END-2022 — THE INSTALLED BASE THE COMPLIANCE-SERVICES MARKET SERVES (SOURCE: UAE MINISTRY OF ECONOMY, VIA WAM)
AED 375,000THE DOUBLE THRESHOLD: TAXABLE INCOME ABOVE IT ATTRACTS 9% CORPORATE TAX, AND TAXABLE SUPPLIES ABOVE IT FORCE VAT REGISTRATION (SOURCE: FEDERAL DECREE-LAW 47 OF 2022; FEDERAL DECREE-LAW 8 OF 2017)
AED 10,000ADMINISTRATIVE PENALTY FOR LATE CORPORATE TAX REGISTRATION, WAIVABLE UNDER THE FTA'S 2025 INITIATIVE FOR ENTITIES FILING WITHIN SEVEN MONTHS OF THEIR FIRST PERIOD END (SOURCE: CABINET DECISION 75 OF 2023 AS AMENDED; FEDERAL TAX AUTHORITY)
Photo · Bernd 📷 Dittrich / Unsplash
Masterplan
The Journey Economy: Mapping MENA's Travel and Experiences Market
Beyond hotel counts: pilgrimage volumes, giga-project supply and the young intra-regional traveller reshaping the region's visitor economy
MENA's five headline travel markets each closed 2025 with record arrivals, a synchronised peak the region has not produced before. This study maps the market beyond hotel counts: tourism's GDP contribution, religious travel volumes, the under-digitised experiences layer, Saudi giga-project supply, and the young domestic and intra-regional demand that actually fills the rooms.
122mTOURIST VISITS TO SAUDI ARABIA IN 2025, DOMESTIC AND INTERNATIONAL COMBINED (SOURCE: SAUDI MINISTRY OF TOURISM, VIA ARAB NEWS)
$178bnTRAVEL AND TOURISM CONTRIBUTION TO SAUDI GDP IN 2025, UP 7.4 PER CENT YEAR ON YEAR (SOURCE: WTTC, VIA ARAB NEWS)
19.59mINTERNATIONAL OVERNIGHT VISITORS TO DUBAI IN 2025, A THIRD CONSECUTIVE RECORD YEAR (SOURCE: DUBAI DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMY AND TOURISM)
