Dubai: The Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC) announced on Tuesday it is planning to build another iconic addition to the city’s skyline, the tallest commercial tower in the world.

Sources privy to the project are withholding the exact height of the tower, but said it will trump Taipei 101 in Taiwan, which stands 508 metres, as well as Burj Al Alam in Business Bay, for which the developer has staked a claim as the tallest commercial building in the world.

Taipei 101 was the world’s tallest until Burj Khalifa opened in Dubai. Burj Khalifa, standing at more than 800 metres, houses residential and office units. When asked if DMCC’s proposed tower will be higher than Burj Khalifa, Ahmad Bin Sulayem, executive chairman of DMCC, declined to give a specific answer but said: “At the end of the day, I’m a commodities person and I work on supply and demand. If the demand demands me to go higher, I won’t shy away,”

He, however, stressed that unlike Burj Khalifa, the tower will be classified as commercial, It will be primarily a steel structure and will be built using more modern technology and practices, as well as better-quality materials and design. He also hinted that the proposed height for the tower could change, considering that when it previously built the Almas Tower, DMCC went from the original 40 to about 70 floors.

“We’re going to look at who else is building the tallest tower in the world and we’re going to make sure we are taller than that,” Sulayem told Gulf News.

The proposed tower, along with the planned DMCC Business Park, is part of DMCC’s expansion strategy to cater to large corporations and multinational companies. The business park will comprise of 107,000 square meters of premium commercial and retail space.

Islam Zughayer, managing director and head of Berenson Mena, an investment banking firm with offices in New York, Dubai and Kuwait, noted that DMCC can support a project of this magnitude because it has not had any external debt for several years.

DMCC had earlier built Almas Tower, the Middle East’s tallest commercial building that houses the DMCC’s headquarters. Over the past four years, DMCC said it has attracted more than 4,000 new companies to the free zone, about 90 per cent of which are new to Dubai.

“In 2013, we have accelerated this growth, with an average of 200 new companies joining DMCC every single month. This increased demand further demonstrates not only the confidence in DMCC and Dubai, but also underlines the need for new commercial space,” said Bin Sulayem.