Telecoms emerges as new growth market for Dubai Internet City

In addition, DIC successfully showcased Dubai's unmatched value propositions, which received heightened interest among many of the 68,000 trade visitors to the 19th International Communication and Information Technology Exhibition and Conference (CommunicAsia 2008).

The exponential growth of the emirate's economy that is ranked sixteenth in the world's highest GDP per capita according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Report 2007 was widely discussed.

Malek Al Malek, Executive Director of Dubai Internet City said:

"This year, we perceived a notably higher quotient of interest towards the Middle East, more so from majors in the telecom and mobile phone sector. The trend seemed a natural outcome of the current economic climate worldwide, with the region, specifically Dubai, featuring prominently on the radar of international conglomerates as a key market promising buoyant investment opportunities."

"Leveraging the platform offered by CommunicAsia 2008, Dubai Internet City presented its inimitable offerings of a state-of-the-art infrastructure and cutting edge technical applications. Our participation proved extremely rewarding as it led to identifying concrete business leads, with many having already initiated the process for registration. In the coming months, we anticipate a substantial upsurge in the number of business partners from the telecom and mobile sector at the ICT free zone."

Dubai Internet City sparked the interest of multinationals as well as small and medium-sized companies that are predominately based in India, Singapore and Malaysia. Trade visitors from Korea, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, the UK, US and Australia were also interested to know how business development at the free zone could reap long term benefits.

According to a recent White Paper published by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), the UAE leads the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region in the global e-readiness rankings. The report measures the quality of a country's information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure and the ability of its consumers, businesses and governments to use ICT to their benefit.

Hosting most of the Fortune 500 companies as well as more than 1,200 specialised industry leaders from diverse segments of the information and communication technology sectors, Dubai Internet City has emerged as one of the largest ICT clusters in the world, catering to the region's increasing focus on creating knowledge-based economies.