RAK to allow 100% foreign ownership

Foreigners will be allowed to fully own their businesses in many sectors in Ras Al-Khaimah, the emirate’s government has said.

The move is a further bid to attract greater foreign investment to the emirate and is part of the emirate's ongoing economic liberalisation programme.

Ras Al-Khaimah’s department of economic development has allowed a ‘service agent’ system of commercial licensing, which means foreigners will no longer have to require sponsorship from a UAE national to own businesses, UAE newspaper Gulf News reported.

“The commercial licenses will be officially registered in the names of the expatriates themselves not in the names of the Emirati sponsors,” said Hamad Hassan Al Shamsi, the department's deputy director who said the new system will be introduced on September 1.

Al-Shamsi also said the system is expected to bolster the emirate’s economy and raise the number of commercial licenses and projects.

Ras al-Khaimah, located in the north of the UAE, has had a free trade zone since 2000 in which over 1,430 companies operate.

The UAE national had previously been legally responsible for all the commercial projects and license he sponsors, but this system would no longer be valid in the emirate, said Ali Ali Ahmad Al Beloushi, head of the department’s record registry and licensing section.

However, the foreign investor will require a UAE national as a service agent. The national will not bears any legal responsibility, but his name will be cited at the bottom of the licence.

Al Beloushi said the requirement of a UAE national as a service agent in the commercial license was also made by other departments, which necessitate a UAE national to operate similar procedures for commercial projects.

Eighteen commercial licenses have not been included in the agent system and will still require a UAE national to be granted the necessary commercial licences, Al Beloushi added.

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