The United Arab Emirates government has told some of its biggest business families that it intends to remove their monopolies on the sale of imported goods as the Gulf state deepens economic reforms in an effort to attract more investment.

For decades, multinationals have had to appoint local partners to distribute their goods. The government has proposed legislation ending the automatic renewal of existing commercial agency agreements, giving foreign firms the flexibility to distribute their own goods or change their local agent on contract expiry.

“It no longer makes sense for individual families to have such power and preferential access to easy wealth,” said an Emirati official. “We have to modernise our economy.” Officials have indicated that the new law is expected to be approved by Emirati leadership but the timing remains uncertain. The UAE government did not provide comment.