GOIC to conduct a Forum on International Experiences in Industrial Clusters Development

The forum will be held on Sunday, June 1 and it aims to explore various options and approaches in clusters' development in a number of countries ranging from developed countries to developing economies.

The three-session forum focuses on SMIs based on the fact that international experiences proofed that this kind of enterprises when performing within clusters, have benefited from the creation of growth, competitiveness, networking and opportunities of investment.

The forum is organized by the Gulf Organization for Industrial Consulting (GOIC) in cooperation with the Ministry of Energy and Industry in the State of Qatar. The forum will give participants the chance to have an insight into the challenges and gains in developing industrial clusters from other contexts and countries, learn from best practices and how they can be applied in their respective context. The forum will also tackle three experiences from GCC in industrial clusters field in each of the United Arab Emirates, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and State of Qatar.

The number of SMIs in GCC member states reached some 10,000 mainly concentrated in the sectors of Chemicals and Plastic, as well as Non-metal mining industries (except Petroleum). SMIs represent 86.3% of the total number of Gulf factories. The volume of investment in this sector is some $10.8bn and manpower is some 464,490 workers.

According to GOIC, SMIs have achieved growth in terms of number from 7000 factories in 2002 to some 10,000 factories in 2007, i.e. an average growth rate of 43%, and an average annual growth rate of 7.4%.

The United Arab Emirates achieved the highest rate in term of the number of factories in this sector by having 3,828 factories in 2007, compared to 2,282 factories in 2002, i.e. a growth rate of 68% during the same period.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia ranked second, as SMIs increased from 2,546 to 3,323, at a growth rate of almost 30% during the same period.

Preliminary statistics performed by GOIC show that the number of industrial clusters in GCC member states is some 200 clusters working in Petrochemicals, Traditional Industries, Cement, Aluminium and Fertilizers, further to Service-based Clusters.

The application of industrial clusters in GCC member states faces a set of obstacles relating to the lack of awareness or knowledge of their importance, lack of trained human resources and marketing abilities, lack of appropriate financing mechanism, besides infrastructure bottlenecks, information gaps, lack of coordination and linkages between different stakeholders as well as the lack of institutional framework for such type of projects.