Dubai and Abu Dhabi top latest Global...

UAE cities make positive progress alongside Riyadh and Dammam

Dubai continues to lead the MENA region on Kearney’s Global Cities Index, ranking 24th globally and claiming a spot in the top 25 for the fourth consecutive year.

Neighbouring UAE capital Abu Dhabi tied with Dubai to rank first for Ease of Entry - a new metric under the Human Capital dimension designed to reflect success in attracting and retaining foreign talent.

The annual Global Cities Report – made up of the Global Cities Index (GCI) and Global Cities Outlook (GCO) – seeks to measure and analyse the connectivity and global character of the world’s metropolitan areas.

Overall, Middle Eastern cities were stable in their scores for 2024, with a stronger performance in the Global Services Firms metric under the Business Activity dimension, reflecting the strong push across the GCC toward increasingly diversified economies.

The Global Cities Index (GCI) looks to quantify the extent to which a city can attract, retain and generate global flows of capital, people and ideas.

Cities are measured against five key dimensions: Human Capital, Information Exchange, Cultural Experience, Political Engagement and Business Activity.

Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh and Dammam also performed well, with the latter rising 19 places in the Business Activity category, driven largely by a 71% rise in its services sector.

“Our analysis shows a new form of globalisation emerging – one that is more distributed and networked, and highly uncertain in the near term,” said Rudolph Lohmeyer, Kearney Partner, National Transformations Institute.

“As patterns of global trade and capital flows shift, cities in the Middle East have an enormous opportunity to leverage their strategic location, robust economies, attractive immigration policies and underlying digital infrastructure to not only mitigate risks, but also propel economic growth.”

The Global Cities Outlook (GCO) aims to identify cities most likely to achieve global prominence in the future, with Dubai climbing 10 ranks, Makkah climbing eight ranks and Muscat rising 11 ranks for Innovation.

Sascha Treppte, Partner, Kearney Middle East and Africa, said: “We see significant efforts from cities to address challenges related to sustainability and climate change, but too often these are piecemeal reactions to individual symptoms.

“Cities must shift their perspective toward being more systems-oriented and proactive. This is possible through what we call a regenerative approach – one that focuses on building institutional capabilities and readiness to address the challenges of today and tomorrow holistically and for the benefit of all.”

For more information, visit www.kearney.com/service/global-business-policy-council/gcr

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