South America, Central Asia and East Africa are on Dubai’s radar for future expansion of its export sector. A top government official said that new markets would push future growth of Dubai. UAE sees huge potential in the emerging markets of Brazil, Kazakhstan, Australia and South Africa while it is happy at the pace of trade progress with Dubai's traditional partners such as Saudi Arabia and India.

Saaed Al Awadi, CEO of Dubai Exports, said, "The government is looking to diversify and concentrate on different markets as it tries to guarantee exports to more markets while increasing market share in the existing ones."

This year’s edition of Dubai Export Monitor Performance Highlights claims that Dubai exports and re-exports in 2010 with south and west Asian countries stood at Dh157 billion, followed by Arab countries at Dh48.4 billion. India and Switzerland mainly imported gold from Dubai while Arab countries imported mainly petroleum, plastic and gold during the reporting period.

Gold accounted 56 per cent of direct exports in Dubai and most of the export was made through air transport. Around 60-70 per cent of direct trade took place through air mode.