The UAE population is gradually nearing the 10 million mark. In just 10 years the population has grown from the mere 4 million people to almost 10 million. Around 85% are foreign professionals whom the country relies on quite heavily. A significant part of all foreign professionals are expats from South Asian countries amounting to approximately 2.5 million people.
Despite the gradual increase of living costs in UAE, the population is expected to grow further in the country which offers high living standards, excellent health care sector, tax free salaries and a relative freedom in terms of lifestyle. Furthermore, the highly developed infrastructure and education sector contribute to the attractiveness of UAE, hence many expats relocate to UAE and benefit from a very well linked and comfortable journey to work and back home as well as raise and educate their children in peace and harmony.
According to the United Nations, the urban trends across UAE are in line with the whole Middle East region. Overall, around 230 million people are to be expected by 2020 in all the Mena region cities combined. The younger generation chooses cities in line with their ambitions to find more promising career opportunities.
The rapid growth has propelled UAE and Dubai in particular to boost the development of infrastructure to cope with the significant influx of new residents. Substantial funds have to be spent on water, transport and energy.
Now with more residents than ever before, Dubai seems to be firmly back on track with its ambitious growth plans. The increase in population has positively reflected in Dubai’s property market with almost 70% increase in real estate transaction, which led to properties price increase of 5%.
Dubai has already almost a quarter of the entire UAE’s population, however the number of people working in Dubai increases exponentially, as Dubai is the Emirate with the most career opportunities at all levels, however due to high and rising living costs, a lot of the people working in Dubai live in other adjacent Emirates.
Every day Dubai is visited by at least 1 million people from around the Emirate and abroad making the Emirate the most active Emirate in UAE with almost 4 million individuals.
Taking into account the current growth rate, the Emirate will have around 30000 residents coming to Dubai every quarter, thus increasing the yearly incoming population by 100000 inhabitants. With the economic confidence continuing to prevail in UAE and considering the current political tensions between USA and EU, the UAE is seen to be the most attractive destination for business and permanent residence.
