The head of the Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism, Hadi Badri, says his country is in discussions with Hong Kong about virtual assets market cooperation, including establishing a mutual recognition mechanism on licensing.

Chief Executive John Lee visited Dubai as a part of his Middle East trip in February, signing a number of letters of intent regarding cooperation between the two places.

Dubai officials came to the SAR last week to attract businesses and investment to their city, holding meetings with various corporations and family offices.

Badri said Hong Kong is an important trading partner, and the two places can cooperate in areas like trade, investment, digital transformation and financial services.

"There may be an opportunity in the virtual assets space for passporting of licences. These are all opportunities that we are speaking to the relevant parties as Dubai, here in Hong Kong," he told RTHK.

"We were the first to create a world's independent regulatory authority. We see that Hong Kong is also taking this progressive view. I'm confident that there will be some good partnership potential."

Badri said there have been some market fluctuations recently, including the collapse of the large virtual assets trading platform FTX, but Dubai is paying more attention to the long term development of the market.