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The advisory desk

Insights

Working notes from the people who file the applications — what the rules actually say, what they cost, and where founders lose time. Written against the authorities, not against a brochure.

The archive

Briefings on Trade & logistics

7 pieces Clear filter
  1. Trade & logistics Uniformed officer raises a flat palm across a counter to a suited man, a sealed container model between them

    Appoint a UAE distributor and the law may hand them the right to hold your own goods at customs

    Every expansion plan contains the same sentence: find a local partner to reach the market. In the UAE that sentence is not commercial advice, it is a statutory category. Federal Law No. 20 min read
  2. Trade & logistics A woman in a hijab holds up two sealed documents, one showing a trolley, one a container ship

    The trade licence lets you sell goods. The customs code is what lets you move them.

    The operational file a trading company has to build after the licence is issued. 25 min read
  3. Trade & logistics Five glass bell jars over paper stacks topped with gold landmark models on a dark counter

    A general trading licence means something different in every zone

    No federal instrument defines a general trading licence, so each licensing authority defines its own — and the published definitions contradict each other. 25 min read
  4. Trade & logistics Woman resting her chin on her hand over a stamped document, four clocks lined up beside it

    A UAE company’s first year breaks on dates, not decisions — and none of the dates starts when you begin trading

    The mistakes that surface between month two and month twelve are not the formation mistakes. 12 min read
  5. Trade & logistics Man in a kandura moves one of four icon-engraved wooden cubes, three rubber stamps ranged beside them

    Four decisions settle a Dubai general trading application before anybody reads the form

    No Dubai business is obliged to hold a general trading licence, and the claim that every company needs one is the oldest error in the guides. 14 min read
  6. Trade & logistics Woman lifts a card from an upright file resting on a lit cutaway model of shop units

    A general trading licence is bought once; the business behind it is administered one product line at a time

    The breadth that makes general trading attractive is the same breadth that multiplies what the business carries afterwards. 13 min read
  7. Trade & logistics Woman in a hijab studies a sheet of product photographs above a printed route chart showing a container ship

    Two lines decide whether you can import into Dubai: the activity on your licence and the delivery term in your purchase order

    The licence half of a Dubai trading operation, which is the half you can still change cheaply. 15 min read

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