Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi patronizes conference on Gulf petrochemicals' future

The event will be held under the patronage of H.H. General Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces of the UAE.

The conference is considered an important opportunity to know updates in petrochemicals industry, its trends and growth levels. It aims at drawing a wide-ranging strategy for the future of petrochemicals industry; determining a vision that is based on integration and correlation; and diagnosing the challenges that might face the industry. The conference will focus on strategic issue such as: Role of the GCC in the Global Petrochemical Sector, Technological Advances and Market Trends, Financing/Investing in Gulf Petrochemical Industry, Challenges Faced by the GCC Petrochemical Industry, and Paving the Way Forward to 2020.

The conference is held in coordination with the GCC General Secretariat, and Federation of GCC Chambers, in addition to chambers of commerce and industry in UAE. Ministers of industry in GCC member states and a number of decision makers, investors, and key players in the industrial sector at regional and international levels are participating in this event. Gerhard Schroder, Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany; and Prof. Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel Prize Recipient in Economics in 2001 are keynote speakers in this event, further to a group of international and regional speakers.

The conference agenda includes five work sessions; the first session includes, further to GOIC's work paper on GCC Petrochemical Sector: Vision for 2020, an open discussion with the ministers of industry; while in the other four sessions, seven work papers that handle conference main theme will presented.

The Petrochemicals Industry represents one of the fundamental pillars of the GCC economy. Over the last two decades, the Petrochemicals industry in most GCC member states experienced an unrivaled phase of sustained growth, that is expected to continue unabated in the foreseeable future. Indeed, there is a widespread consensus that the Region is extremely well positioned to take a leading role in the Petrochemicals industry throughout the 21st century.

It is expected that investment size in this sector reaches $120bn by 2010. For example in Ethylene, one of the fundamental Petrochemical products, half the world's capacity growth in the next five years will be concentrated in the Middle East. As a result, by 2010, Ethylene production from Iran and the GCC member states will double to 20% of global capacity.

Furthermore, statistics indicate that the average growth rate of Gulf investments in chemicals and petrochemicals industry reached 5% between 2000- 2006; as it increased from some $52bn to $70bn, and this constitutes a share of 59% of the total Gulf investments in the processing industries which equals $118.3bn. Workforce in this sector reached in 2006 some 163,134 workers, while there were 122,735 workers in 2000, i.e. a growth rate of 32.5% in the designated period.