UAE's infotech industry spending touches Dh42b

Dubai: The UAE's current spending on ICT (information, communication and technology) stood at around $11.4 billion (Dh41.8 billion) and was forecast to increase to $14.8 billion by 2011, according to an expert.

Dubai Internet City (DIC) hopes to attract 140 new companies into this burgeoning sector in 2008 from 112 new companies in 2007, its managing director Malek Sultan Al Malek said at Gitex yesterday.

Al Malek said the DIC had matched its 2007 numbers for this year and hoped to achieve its target for 2008 by December. It continued to attract companies into the market through promoting the services it provided as an ICT hub in the region.

The DIC's main focus for the short term was establishing programmes to nurture assist and attract small- and medium-sized businesses from the region and the rest of the world.

"We are trying to establish programmes that will nurture and assist small and medium enterprises, that is our main focus within the region and also trying to have market transparency for companies who are looking outside for expansion, to new markets.

"Our focus is shifting more to countries that have actual development or localised development for the region. Google came last year, they are trying to localise a lot of their services and that's why we have them here. We try to support these types of activities. Something that is specifically for this region because this market is different," he said.

Spending in the sector largely went into infrastructure over recent years, leaving a gap for providing high quality service to users.

According to Al Malek, the sector will soon move toward spending more on providing standards on par with that of the rest of the world.

"The service period is coming when you have a lot of good spending on the infrastructure side definitely it will bring the service side on par with the international standards. Most of the ICT infrastructure has been laid down in many sectors, if you look at e-government for example; we are the first country in the Arab nations to have this. The UAE is ranked first in the Arab nations and top 30 in the whole world. Now it's the time for services," he said.

The global financial turmoil which has rocked markets over the last month provided an opportunity, especially for the ICT sector, Al Malek said.

"We haven't been yet affected by it, we haven't seen [an impact] but we always believe that economic crisis somewhere in the world always brings opportunities in the other part. I'm talking mainly about the investment destinations if money has to go somewhere especially when it comes to investments and it will go to the most growing market in the ICT sector," he said.