[October 19, 2006]

Dubai Internet City Woos Chinese IT Firms

(Comtex Business Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) SHENZHEN, Oct 19, 2006 (SinoCast China IT Watch via COMTEX) --Dubai Internet City (DIC), the Middle East's biggest base for the information and communication technology (ICT) industry, is introducing itself to Chinese IT companies these days.

Its delegate, headed by Kevin Healy, came to Shenzhen, an industrially booming city in South China, and attended the eighth hi-tech exchange fair, DIC's second visit to such a fair.

At the fair, DIC, a base located in the free trade area, promised to offer more conveniences to companies to enter the base, including 100 percent tax exemption, capital and profit recovery by 100 percent, no limit to foreign exchange, the simplest register procedure, and strong protection for the intellectual property right.

The base is known for both soft ware and hard ware industries, such as fluent IP telephone networks, PABX solutions, LAN connections, WAN technologies, and solutions for virtual host computer service.

It proves to be an effective platform for companies targeting emerging markets in a wide region extending from the Middle East to the Indian subcontinent, and Africa to the CIS countries, where there is a population of 2 billion with GDP of USD 6.7 trillion.

The base's clients are engaged in various sectors ranging from soft ware development, business service, e-commerce or cyber commerce, consulting and marketing. By now its has attracted several global IT giants like Microsoft, Cisco Systems, IBM, HP, Dell, Siemens, Sun Microsystems, Computer Associates, PeopleSoft and Sony Ericsson.

But Kevin Healy stressed that they are not casting their eye only to global heavyweights. On the contrary, the base also attaches great importance to medium- and small-sized firms and strives to provide pretty considerate service to them.

The latest data show that the IT market in the Middle East was valued at USD 9.5 billion in 2005, a hike from USD 6.9 billion in 2003. The past eight years have witnessed a decuple growth in the region's Internet spread.

In 2004, the Middle East's PC sales rose 25 percent, in contrast to an approximate increase of 15 percent around the globe.

China has seen a rapid growth in its ICT industry in recent years, and that is why DIC has come here to seek Chinese partner, claimed Kevin Healy. The nation has made much progress in research and development as well as production, he added.

The nation has formed a quite complete optical communications industry and there erected several ICT titans like Huawei Technologies and ZTE.

Huawei, the biggest telecom equipment maker in China's mainland, has entered DIC since 2002 and become the base's first Chinese client. The company is expanding aggressively in the Middle East now.

Recently the Shenzhen-based company has signed a contract with Saudi Arabia's Mobily under the wing of UAE's Etisalat upon the construction of an UMTS network. They will join hands not only in the field of 3G but also in deploying GSM networks.

As a globally leading mobile soft switch maker, Huawei ranks the first by sales in the world. Its soft switch users around the world have exceeded 100 million.

ZTE, the second largest telecom equipment maker in China's mainland, is selling its CDMA phones in more than 30 countries, and its global sales has outnumbered 10 million units. More CDMA phones were sold abroad than in China's mainland in 2005.

(USD 1 = CNY 7.90)

From Star Daily, Page 1, Wednesday, October 18, 2006
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