Dubai: Snasco, a Saudi and UAE-owned real estate company, will develop Sharjah Investment Park (SIP) a commercial and industrial cluster with an initial investment of Dh1.5 billion, said a top company official.
"We have already identified a 32 million square foot plot of land on the Emirates Road in Sharjah, to develop the park," Saleh Nasser Al Sorayai, Snasco's chairman, told Gulf News on Monday.
"We have received the necessary licence and government permit for the the project, which we will announce this year.
"However, some of the paperwork is still pending."
When officially launch-ed, this will be the first such private sector-led initiative, which traditionally has been restricted to only government or semi-government ownership.
"This will not be a free zone, but an investment park for manufacturing, industry, storage, logistics and office facilities. The project has attracted major investors from the UAE and Saudi Arabia," he said.
"We are investing Dh1.5 billion in the project's initial set-up and infrastructure. However, once ready, it will attract much more investment in the park."
The company is developing several projects in both the UAE and Saudi Arabia with investments exceeding Dh2 billion.
Commercial tower
On Monday it announced a Dh320 million commerical tower, West Bay, following its earlier announcement of 1 Business Bay a Dh400 million commercial project both in Business Bay, Dubai's new commerical district.
This is the second private sector-led industrial and logistics cluster initiated in the country, following the Emirates Modern Industrial City in Umm Al Quwain. However, unlike Emirates Modern Industrial City, SIP will be a multi-faceted project where manufacturing as well as warehousing will exist along with office and commercial projects giving investors wider investment options.
Although Al Sorayai declined to divulge any further details, on the face of it, the project could somewhat replicate Dubai Investment Park one of the most successful industrial clusters in the UAE that attracted hundreds of millions of dirhams worth of investment in several manufacturing units.
