A percentage on its own no longer counts as a discount in Dubai. The consumer protection department now wants the original price and the reduced price printed beside it, so a ticket shows what the item was, what it is now, and the gap between the two. More than 500 inspection visits had been made by 19 August, against a target of 800 by the end of the month, which puts the checks squarely in this week.

Ahmed Ahli, the department's acting director of consumer protection, has said a percentage alone, whether 25 or 75 per cent, is not enough. Back-to-school discounts are running at 25 to 30 per cent across the city and reaching 75 on some lines, so the rule covers most of what is on the shelves this week. No fine has been published for breaking it, and a shop that adds the old price today is compliant before an inspector arrives.

From tomorrow the tax on vape liquid stops following the price. The UAE sets a floor of one dirham per millilitre on 1 September, and the tax is worked out on that floor rather than on what the shop actually paid. That is AED 10 on a 10ml bottle and AED 30 on a 30ml one. A 60ml bottle priced at AED 40 is therefore taxed as though it cost AED 60, with the rate itself untouched at 100 per cent.

Anything already priced above a dirham a millilitre is untouched, which leaves the cheap end of the shelf carrying the whole of the rise. The Ministry of Finance made the change on 6 August and left the excise prices for cigarettes and tobacco where they were. Yen Vape, a shop quoted in The National, plans to absorb part of the cost rather than pass it straight to customers.

Almost nothing in Dubai's office market is empty, which is why the cheaper end of it is getting dearer. Average office vacancy has fallen to 6.1 per cent from 7.7 a year ago, and the older, cheaper Grade B space is down to 8 per cent empty from 10.9. Prime space, the top of the market, is 0.7 per cent available. Rents on the Grade B tier have risen 31.5 per cent in a year, outpacing the 26.2 per cent on the grade above it.

There is nowhere cheaper to move. Only about 940,000 square feet of new office space is due before the end of the year, under one per cent of a stock of 101.4 million, while lease registrations have risen 24.6 per cent on the year. Those are JLL's figures for the second quarter, and they describe the market a renewal quote arriving this month is written against.