The DIFC owns the emirate's financial assets such as its stock exchange, Mr Bin Sulaiman said: "DIFC Week takes place at a critical juncture for the global economy. Many see in the turmoil of global markets a crisis of epochal proportions. Yet the financial shock waves rumbling around the world could be the first birth pangs of a new economic reality... Until recently capital typically moved from the developed world to developing economies. This dynamic is now changing. New financial centres [like the GCC region] complement, if not rival, the role played by established centres like London and New York."