Absolutely, Dubai is becoming a go-to spot for financial activities, especially for those in newer industries like cryptocurrencies. And besides the business perks, Dubai also offers a fantastic lifestyle and plenty of networking opportunities.
Dubai is a playground, business deals are definitely completed there and it is home to many millionaires - but it is still a very fake country. No big businesses are going there to setup their main headquarters and store money within the reach of the UAE authorities. The mindset has shifted slowly, but there is no getting second citizenship in Dubai, you will always be an outsider unless you were born their and their citizens get a lot of perks thanks to this.
It has a very biased and heavily religious influenced legal system which is not acceptable for most mega scale business dealings. If you go into debt in Dubai, you will be jailed until you pay it off, this is not a normal practice in most other advanced economies.
This singular act of theirs will be the reason why most people won’t want to go to Dubia to start up a business. Even those with same religion with them won’t see it as normal. I mean in business as much as you don’t want to owe, you have to consider it when either you run out of stokes and the demands are high. Or maybe one’s business isn’t really making as profit as they should or maybe suffer lost. There are so many reasons why a business owner can go in to debt.
But then how does jailing such person enable them to go about their business and clear off their debts. This will leave them with their debts increasing. So the thought of this alone will make one not consider going to start up a business there.