Abu Dhabi Set to Enhance its Manufacturing Sector

The Abu Dhabi government is planning to expand its manufacturing sector, with an investment of billion ($2.72bn) across six industrial programmes. With this, the emirate’s manufacturing sector is expected to hit Dh172bn by 2031.

The initiative is part of the launch of Abu Dhabi Industrial Strategy to enhance Abu Dhabi’s position as the most competitive industrial centre in the region. “The industrial sector plays a major role in bolstering economic diversification in the UAE and the industrial sector in Abu Dhabi represents 40 per cent of the total sector in the country, as the emirate has invested more than Dh51bn in the past 15 years to set up a complete infrastructure,” Mohamed Al Shorafa, chairman of the Abu Dhabi Department of Economic Development, said at a press conference in Abu Dhabi. “The aim is to boost the contribution of non-oil sector to the GDP [gross domestic product].”

In the year 2021, the UAE had launched ‘Operation 300bn’, an industrial strategy aimed to uplift the country as a global industrial hub by 2031. Within these 10 years, the industrial sector’s contribution to the country’s gross domestic product is expected to increase from Dh133bn to Dh300bn.

Via the new strategy, the government aims to enhance production across 11 priority sectors, contribute towards the growth of national industries, attract foreign investment, modernize legislation and see to it that local industrial entities get the required financing.

The UAE’s industrial sector has experienced massive growth in the last couple of years, in spite of the global economic slowdown caused by pandemic. The government has been coming up with various measures to simplify the business functioning in the country and also to enhance the industrial sector. As a result, 220 new factories went into service last year.

According to Mr Al Shorafa, ‘the new industrial strategy will support the UAE’s economy, and also reflect Abu Dhabi’s awareness of the economic changes taking place in the world and the capital’s response to these transformations’.