DIFC Investments, the investment arm of the Dubai International Financial Center, has become one of the largest shareholders in Deutsche Bank with a 2.2 percent stake, Dubai officials said yesterday.

Deutsche Bank’s biggest investors are the Swiss bank UBS, with 3.12 percent, and the British bank Barclays, with 3.1 percent, according to the German bank’s Web site.

Omar bin Sulaiman, governor of the Dubai financial center, is trying to establish a financial hub in the Middle East on a par with London, Hong Kong and New York.

In a statement yesterday, he called the Deutsche Bank stake a “strategic investment.” The German bank “has a very solid, sustainable global growth strategy and the right management team to deliver on that strategy,” he said.

Dubai’s 110-acre financial center is trying to draw banks and investment companies to the region with a combination of new infrastructure, no taxes and no penalties on repatriating profits. While many banks have applied for licenses, so far there is not a large amount of business actually being done there.

The Dubai government’s purchase of a stake in a large global bank could be a good-will investment, aimed at attracting more global banks to the region, analysts said.

“They are certainly very keen to make the DIFC the place to do finance in the region,” said Steve Brice, Standard Chartered Bank’s head of Middle East research, who is based in Dubai.