Fears that the new regulations from the UAE Central Bank could cause slowdown among local banks were downplayed by Ahmad Humaid al-Tayer, governor of the DIFC on 21 June.

“I don’t think there is any effect,” he said.

At the end of May, the central bank introduced a cap on the amount UAE banks can lend to consumers at 20 times their salary with a repayment period of 48 months for loans.

Goldman Sachs Group slashed UAE bank earnings by 10 per cent for 2011-14 in a report published on 20 June due to these new measures.

According to Al-Tayer, Dubai’s banking sector is returning to healthy growth, along with “trade, logistics, tourism, the financial sector, import, export, re-export, all these are doing fine”, he said. The real-estate sector is the one struggling the most and “there is no quick solution and it’s not just for the UAE, it’s worldwide”, said Al-Tayer.

Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed al-Maktoum, chairman of Dubai’s Supreme Fiscal Committee says these core sectors have performed strongly in the first half of this year.

“Dubai is still a busy place, the core business of Dubai is still doing well, with double-digit growth in some sectors for the first half of the year,” he said.