'Investors are attracted by returns'

Dead Sea, Jordan: Investment is always available, even in these difficult economic times, as long as companies have unique ideas that can offer investors a good return on their money.

This is the view of Abdul Latif Al Mulla, group chief executive officer of Tecom Investments, a member of Dubai Holding. "Investment has not disappeared because of the crises. It depends on how you approach investors and your business model. You have to be smart about what you put on the table," he said.

Al Mulla is well-placed to know what investors want. Tecom provides and runs free trade zones developed around knowledge-based industries in Dubai. Dubai Internet City is one of their flagship developments and some of the biggest names in the technology world, like Hewlett Packard, Fujitsu Siemens, Huawei Technologies and Cisco systems, have been convinced to set up shop there.

Al Mulla was speaking to Gulf News on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum meeting on the Middle East, being held in Jordan.

The forum is looking at the implications of the global economic crises on the Middle East. "The impact has hit everybody and nobody has been immune, directly or indirectly," Al Mulla said. "But, the history of Dubai has proven that it gets stronger after each crisis. The government reacted fast, and that is the name of the game."

For Al Mulla, the present crisis shows the weakness in the argument that "government should stay away from the market", as its actions are what have helped Dubai through the international economic crises.

"As for Tecom, we had been predicting some sort of a hit within financial year 2009, so we were being conservative in terms of investment, expenses and employment. When the crises hit the market, at least we had enough of a cushion to absorb the hit& and move forward with the minimum impact."

Al Mulla is confident that Tecom can continue to attract companies to the nine free zones it is developing, but he adds: "It's not a case of one size fits all. Each of these zones requires a different approach [depending] if you want attract or grow companies. But, in each free zone, we have seen that once you put enough focus on each industry, you can do wonders."

Al Mulla said he saw "increased collaboration between companies, countries and people - for sure", as people work together to deal with the shared impact of the international economic crises.

There will also be increased transparency as companies have become very aware that they share the dangers of the business risks of their partners, he said. "You can't hide anything anymore."