Dubai Media City stamps its mark as a global player

The number of companies in DMC community grew by 40 per cent to 780 countries as the stream of leading global players continued unabated.

Dubai Media City was inaugurated exactly three years ago by His Highness General Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and UAE Defence Minister with a vision of creating a free-thinking media community that will develop into an international hub for the industry.

Dubai Media City is an integral part of Dubai's vision of transforming its economy into a knowledge-based economy and society. By synergising its community and its resources with Dubai Internet City's information and communications technology (ICT) cluster, Dubai Media City also seeks to accelerate the growth of the region's knowledge industries.

Global and regional companies continued to gravitate to Dubai Media City in 2003. Several international companies set up their bases in the City to tap the rapidly emerging media opportunities in the region. Major companies that joined Dubai Media City last year included Spacetoon, Showtime, Agence-France Presse (AFP), Star TV and CNBC Arabiya. The community grew by 40 per cent from 560 companies at the end of 2002 to 780 companies. This growth was spread across all its sectors including Publishing & Printing, Music, New Media, Film, Leisure & Entertainment, Broadcasting and Information Agencies.

"The year 2003 has seen Dubai Media City evolve into a truly global player," said Abdulhamid Juma, CEO of Dubai Media City. "Over the past year, Dubai Media City has created a much bigger blip on the international media-industry radar. A key part of our strategy has been to reach out to the world through global events and partnerships with international organisations. Over 2003, we have worked to constantly generate new service ideas that can add value to media companies. One of these ideas was developed into a unique infrastructure offering that brings considerable benefits for media production companies. With such new initiatives, we seek to enhance the competitive advantage that media companies gain by moving to Dubai," he added.

One of the key elements of DMC's global strategy in 2003 was the launch of an International Film Festival to be held in December 2004. Titled the Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF), this mega event plans to showcase a wide variety of films from around the world and provide a forum for industry professionals to meet and network.

The Film Festival is all set to put Dubai on the map of leading festivals of the world. The event has already attracted considerable interest from the global film industry. The global launch of the Dubai International Film Festival at Cannes received an enthusiastic response from the cream of the industry gathered at the festival.

DIFF will provide the stimulus for the development of Dubai into a centre for international film production. The Festival will not only attract celebrities, film producers, aspiring stars, directors and other film professionals from all around the world but also create interest in Dubai as a location for film shooting.

Dubai Media City also established partnerships with leading international organisations in 2003. Key among these was a strategic partnership established with the World Summit Awards (WSA). The World Summit Award is a UN-endorsed global initiative that seeks to showcase and recognize the world's best digital content and new-media applications. As a result of this partnership, the Grand Jury meeting to evaluate the entries for the WSA was held in the Dubai Technology and Media Free Zone.

As part of its strategic expansion plan, Dubai Media City also developed new infrastructure facilities for media companies in 2003. One of its path-breaking ventures was the International Media Production Zone (IMPZ). The IMPZ is the first dedicated trade zone created in the region for media-related production activities. It provides a highly pro-business environment and a complete technology and community infrastructure to support and foster the growth of media production.

Located on 35 million sq. ft of land along Emirates Road, the Zone seeks to create a cluster environment for media production companies from across the industry value chain to interact and collaborate productively. While the infrastructure will support all sectors of the media and entertainment industry, the first production cluster will focus on the printing industry. Some of the other sectors for which the Zone will provide an ideal production location include music, broadcast among others. Among others, companies producing CDs and chips and components for media equipment could immensely benefit from basing themselves in the Zone.

Dubai Media City also took major steps to strengthen its regulatory framework to enable media companies to operate with a high degree of security and certainty. The City launched the Broadcast and Publishing Standards Tribunal (BPST), with the aim of creating an environment that guarantees freedom of expression for media companies.

This new independent body will adjudicate issues related to freedom of expression and the appropriateness of media content produced by companies in the Dubai Technology and Media Free Zone. Supplementing the BPST are the Regulations and Codes of Guidance modelled on international best practice examples that provide guidelines to Free Zone companies on the appropriateness of content they produce.

The establishment of the Tribunal will provide a transparent mechanism for determining what is appropriate freedom of expression with respect to issues such as fairness, privacy and content in general. The Tribunal will not act as a general filter for content, nor will it act as a censorship authority. There has not been and there will not be any requirement for our broadcasters and publishers to send content for approval.

Growing hand in hand with the DMC media cluster was its community of independent media professionals and freelancers at the Media Business Centre which expanded to 260 members. The Media Business Centre grew further as the single largest resource for 'talent-on-tap' in the region. The Centre has developed into a virtual greenhouse for new business ideas and niche ventures.

Dubai Media City' received recognition for the global profile it has gained when it was announced the 'Winner' in the Government, Semi-government and NGO's category of the prestigious "Gulf Brands of the Decade Awards". The nomination came in recognition of the effectiveness of its brand strategy and individuality of its identity.

The Award was also bestowed to Dubai Media City in recognition of the level of awareness it has created and the clarity of communicating its own vision and mission that gave DMC's name a well-established identity throughout the region and the world.