A&A Associate to offer free legal consultancy for new Emirati entrepreneurs

A top Dubai business setup company is reaching out to Emiratis planning their first foray into entrepreneurship by giving them a head start with one free legal, accounting or auditing consultancy.

This comes on the back of the recent announcement that UAE citizens working in the government sector will be given paid leave at half of their salary to help them start their own business as part of a new initiative.

His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of UAE and Ruler of Dubai, who chaired a Cabinet meeting last week in Abu Dhabi, said the scheme will encourage more young Emiratis to start their own ventures.

“We are looking to encourage our young people to benefit from the major opportunities offered by our national economy,” he tweeted after the approval of the scheme that will grant sabbatical leave to an employee for a year to establish or manage any of the private projects he or she owns.

“But there’s a pre-condition: the purpose of the leave must be for establishing an economic project in the private sector or managing an existing project or participating with others,” said Robin Philip, the founder, director of A&A Associate.

“This also reinforces UAE’s efforts in achieving global leadership in business while supporting the country’s key national objectives with a huge focus on not just Emiratisation but also UAE’s overall talent pool and we want to play our part by helping the new crop of Emirati business owners and entrepreneurs leverage our range of services that we bring under one roof – from legal consultancy to accounting to auditing, whatever they may need at the start of their epic new journey,” said Philip, who helped establish A&A’s business setup division in December 2019.

Until the end of last year the multi-ethnic, multi-national company had been helping set up as many as 150 new businesses a month on average, having established 10,000 companies since the launch of its operations. But the string of recent announcements to ramp up Emiratisation in UAE has got Philip busier than ever before.

“What sets us apart is our range of services. We are not just a business setup company but in fact a full-service management consultancy that focuses on providing cost-effective value-added services to meet all business needs for anyone that’s keen to get started but unsure of how to do so.

"Our team of management experts and business consultants are all highly qualified and we can be counted on for anything from financial management advisory to corporate finance, feasibility study to company formation and even services like PRO, Tax Residency Certificates, Offshore Registration, VAT Compliant Accounting,” said Philip.

“A significant proportion of those new entrants today are young Emiratis ready to take their first big step in entrepreneurship,” he added.

“The plan is to ensure that 10 per cent of the private-sector workforce are citizens in the next five years and many of them expected to become entrepreneurs now benefitting from last week’s big announcement,” said Philip.

“And the UAE government’s initiative to grant one-year leave to Emiratis to help them start new businesses will no doubt create more job opportunities for Emiratis and also reduce the burden on public and private sectors to hire Emiratis,” he said.

— business@khaleejtimes.com