ABU DHABI: Abu Dhabi Ports has signed an agreement with the Chinese Jiangsu Provincial Overseas Cooperation and Investment Company (JOCIC) that will attract investments of Dh1.1 billion to the Khalifa Port Free Trade Zone. JOCIC will develop about 23.7 million square feet of the free trade zone for companies from the Chinese province of Jiangsu. The space that will be occupied by JOCIC’s new company, the China-UAE Industrial Capacity Cooperation (Jiangsu) Construction Management, represents roughly 2.2 per cent of the available free zone space in Kizad’s Khalifa Port Free Trade Zone. Kizad, an industrial park, is owned by Abu Dhabi Ports.
“We have worked hard to make KIZAD not only the largest free zone in the region, but also one of the most sophisticated and high-potential free zone areas in the world, particularly for the industrial and manufacturing sectors,” Sultan Al Jaber, chairman of Abu Dhabi Ports and Minister of State. “Today’s announcement reaffirms the longstanding partnership between our two countries, and signals to the world that Abu Dhabi and the UAE are vital to the future of global trade.” The agreement comes amid deepening ties between the UAE and China. China is the UAE’s second biggest trading partner after India and the UAE is the gateway to about 60 per cent of Chinese exports to regional markets.
