New Silk Road: Threat to Dubai, or a billion-dollar opportunity?

Issac John

The Silk Road Finance & Technology Forum concluded in Tashkent with a proposition that carries important implications for the UAE: Central Asia wants its historic trade routes transformed into new corridors for money, payments, technology and investment.

For a country whose prosperity has been built partly on functioning as the commercial and financial crossroads between East and West, that raises an intriguing question.

Does the emergence of a new financial Silk Road bypass the UAE — or make the Emirates even more valuable?

Uzbekistan’s vision is ambitious. The objective is to link Central Asian financial systems more efficiently with the Gulf, China, South Asia, Southeast Asia and Europe through interoperable payments, digital assets, fintech, investment platforms and eventually deeper capital markets.

“Regional financial connectivity cannot be built by one country alone,” Central Bank Governor Timur Ishmetov told the forum.

“Uzbekistan is open to investment, technology, expertise and long-term partnership,” he said, urging international companies to “build here, test new solutions here, invest here, develop talent here.”

For the UAE, the challenge is obvious.

Every new financial centre, logistics hub and direct payment corridor potentially reduces dependence on traditional intermediaries. If Tashkent can connect Central Asian businesses directly with China, India, Türkiye and Europe, some transactions that might previously have been structured, financed or routed through Dubai could eventually remain within an increasingly integrated Eurasian network.

The proposed Tashkent International Financial Centre makes that competitive threat more tangible. Uzbekistan plans English common law, an independent commercial court, tax incentives and special regimes covering banking, Islamic finance, crypto assets and fintech — features strikingly reminiscent of the formula successfully deployed by DIFC, ADGM and, subsequently, Astana.

But viewing the new Silk Road principally as a threat would misread the UAE’s strategic position.

The Emirates is already deeply embedded in Uzbekistan’s transformation.

Uzbek authorities put the portfolio of projects with leading Emirati companies at more than $20 billion in 2025. Masdar, AD Ports and other UAE groups are involved across energy, infrastructure and logistics, while more than 2,300 Uzbek companies are operating in the UAE.

DP World is going further, investing more than $288 million in a multimodal logistics terminal near Tashkent designed to connect road, rail and air networks across Central Asia. The project effectively places a Dubai-headquartered company inside the physical infrastructure of the emerging Silk Road itself.

The same strategy could now be replicated in finance.

Sopnendu Mohanty, Group CEO of the Global Finance & Technology Network, said Uzbekistan possesses the ingredients to become Central Asia’s digital-finance gateway, but argued that the next step is converting those foundations into “investment, partnerships and financial corridors that connect Central Asia to the world.”

That is precisely where the UAE can insert itself.

Dubai can become the international capital-raising and sukuk-listing centre for Central Asian issuers. Abu Dhabi’s sovereign investors and asset managers can supply long-term capital. UAE banks can finance trade and infrastructure, while Emirati fintech companies can participate in cross-border payments, digital banking and tokenisation.

Nasdaq Dubai’s $98.6 billion sukuk market and DIFC’s almost 2,000 fintech, AI and innovation firms provide a depth Uzbekistan cannot replicate quickly.

The greater strategic risk for the UAE would therefore be not participating aggressively enough.

A successful new Silk Road could gradually shift the economic centre of gravity across Eurasia. But hubs do not necessarily destroy other hubs. They frequently reinforce one another when capital, logistics and technology are interconnected.

The opportunity for the UAE is to ensure that when Central Asia connects to the world, a substantial part of that connection still runs through Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

In that sense, Tashkent need not become Dubai’s competitor.

It could become Dubai’s gateway to a much larger Eurasian hinterland.