Sharjah: Sharjah should develop favourable policies and incentives to attract Bollywood film production to the emirate, the chief executive of Sharjah Investment & Development Authority (Shurooq) said on Tuesday.
Film production could be a major windfall for the emirate’s economy that aims to attract 10 million visitors a year by 2021, Shurooq chief executive Marwan Bin Jassim Al Sarkal told Gulf News in an interview at his offices in Sharjah. “It’s just a matter of tapping into the opportunities.”
Incentives to film in the United Arab Emirates do exist. Abu Dhabi offers a 30 per cent cash rebate on productions. That has helped Abu Dhabi lure big films, including Star Wars: The Force Awakens and The Bourne Legacy. The idea is that major productions will inject cash into the local economy and bring tourists who watch the locations in the film.
Sharjah featured in a number of Indian and Bollywood films in the 1980s and 1990s; however, since then Dubai has become the favoured location.
“Now is the time to go back to what we were doing perfectly well and how we can make use of it,” Al Sarkal said, who spoke to Gulf News ahead of the Sharjah FDI Forum starting on Wednesday.
Sharjah could consider offering cash incentives, streamlining line visa and license fees and procedures and offering logistical support to film productions, Al Sarkal said.
“You can create a strategic alliance with them providing what they need,” he said about Bollywood.
Al Sarkal believes the Arab world can offer more than it has to the international film industry, pointing to the region’s landscape and architecture.
Jordan, Morocco and Qatar also offer incentives; however, instability has made producers cautious about filming in parts of the region. In 2013, producers of US television series Homeland cancelled plans to film in Israel in favour of Morocco over concerns the war in Syria could make Israel unsafe.
The decision to develop pro-film industry policies and incentives would likely have to come from the emirate’s media free zone, according to Al Sarkal who said he first suggested the idea a number of years ago. Sharjah Media City, the free zone, was established in January this year.
“The entity will have to study what will make it a successful hub for any media,” Al Sarkal said.
He also said that there is substantial opportunity for investment in the emirate’s health care sector where there is a ratio of two hospital beds to every 1,000 residents. Around 1.4 million people live in the emirate. He said he has had conversations with a number of international hospital operators but that it was for the health care authority to make any decision.
“We can actually show any investor that Sharjah has a huge market that is untapped,” he said.
Shurooq is the state entity mandated with attracting investment to the emirate and has focused in part on developing the tourism industry.
