Regional Spotlight

New ventures

Ajmal Perfumes investing in factory

Ajmal Perfumes says it is investing Dh17.5 million ($4.7 million) in a new factory in Dubai.

The 147,000sq ft plant, which will be fully operational by the third quarter of this year, will have two complexes, including an R&D wing.

Sited in the Al Quoz industrial area, the factory will meet the increased demand for Ajmal fragrances, which is rising at an annual rate of 25 per cent for the past three years, the company said.

The plant will house a separate packaging unit for the full line of fragrance products, said marketing director Nazir Ajmal, who is also the company's chief perfumer.

With the new plant, Ajmal's production capacity will increase by 300 per cent, allowing four million units of Eau de Parfum per year to be produced, in addition to three million units of powder and a million units of concentrated perfume.

Plans for a diamond exchange

The Dubai Metals and Commodities Centre (DMCC) plans to set up a diamond exchange within two years.

The proposed measure will pave the way for the exchange to become a member of the World Federation of Diamond Bourses.

DMCC has begun talks with international traders to set up the bourse for traders in rough and polished diamonds. This will be the first diamond bourse in the Middle East, though there are close to 20 such bourses worldwide.

Meanwhile, the DMCC has opened bookings for jewellery manufacturing units. This is the first time that gold, diamond and commodities manufacturers can buy premises in Dubai within a complex dedicated to the industry.

New cheese factory coming up

Almarai Company Limited has awarded an SR133 million ($35.4 million) contract to build a new cheese factory in Al Kharj to the Riyadh-based Al Saif Development Company.

The new factory will make several kinds of cheese, a variety of juices and long-life milk. The project will be implemented in three stages. The first phase will cover construction work, the second stage will see in the installation of equipment and the third phase will involve starting up the factory.

Contract awarded for Qatar plant

Foster Wheeler Energy Limited has been awarded a contract by Qatar Petroleum for front-end engineering design (Feed) and project management consultancy (PMC) for a new linear alkyl benzene (Lab) plant in Qatar.

The plant will have the capacity to produce about 88,000 tonnes per year (tpy) of n-paraffin and 110,000 tpy of Lab. It will be built within the Qatar Petroleum Refinery battery limits to benefit from the use of existing utilities such as electric power, cooling water, instrument air and jetty and to reduce the project's capital cost. The project will include construction of new tanks for intermediate and finished products, utilities and product-distribution facilities. The estimated project cost is $240 million. It will be commissioned during the fourth quarter of 2005.

Paper mill opens

A $31.9 million paper mill, financed by three UAE-based business groups and a Bahrain-based company, has opened in Abu Dhabi. Among the four partners of the project is Husain Mahdi Maskati & Sons Company of Bahrain.

The other partners are Abu Dhabi National Industrial Projects Company (Adnip), Al Jabber Contracting and Investment Company and Queenex Paper Factory, all of them based in Abu Dhabi. Total production capacity is 22,000 tonnes per year.

New company formed

Qatar has set up a new company that will take over the government stake in leading petrochemical and steel industries in the Gulf Arab state. The new firm, named Industries of Qatar QSC, will be 85 per cent owned by the state-owned Qatar Petroleum and have an authorised share capital of QR5 billion ($1.37 billion).

The rest of the shares will be offered to the Qatari public. The aim is part of a wider initiative to enable Qataris to share in the development of the state's projects.

Plastic recycling plant set up

An Omani entrepreneur has set up a plastic recycling plant at the Ghala Industrial Estate. The plant, sited on an area of 500sq m, is expected to be ready in July and begin trial production by August.

The RO80,000 ($208,000) project has been set up by Samer bint Mohammed Safarullah, who purchased a plastic recycling plant from Pakistan with a capacity of 30 tonnes a month. Her firm, named Prime Industries, will use 60 per cent of its capacity in the initial stages.

The Ghala plant will process used plastic bottles and containers into a number of recycled items. The project was financed by the Fund for the Development of Youth Projects.

Fund project director Udayan Gupta said that initially about 60 per cent of the finished recycled products would be exported.

The fund has also financed a paper-recycling factory in the Sohar Industrial Estate. The RO900,000 plant set up by Al Mouini Paper Factory started up in March 2000 and now recycles about 1,100 tonnes of carton boxes a month.

Qatar smelter will have Dubal partner

Qatar's United Development Company (UDC) has said it will build its proposed aluminium smelter in partnership with Dubai Aluminium (Dubal).

The joint venture deal will tap UDC's skills in project development and management skills. The technical, operational, and marketing expertise will come from Dubal, which is owned by the Dubai government and whose smelter is one of the largest in the Middle East.

The Doha-based private holding company said the greenfield smelter would be sited at the Ras Laffan Industrial City, about 8km north of the capital Doha. The plant will use the CD 26 technology developed jointly by Dubal and Australia's Comalco Aluminium.

The joint venture deal comes after UDC inked a term sheet for the supply of gas with the Qatari government.

Land selected for textile city

Land in Al Warsan on the Dubai-Al Aweer-Hatta highway has been selected for the Dubai Textile City project, a project source was quoted as saying. The project is coming up on an area of 2.2 million sq ft.

The Textile City project is expected to give a fillip to the sagging textile trade. Dubai's textile trade looks to the project, along with the easing of quotas by the US and the opening of trade with Iraq.

Figures from Emirates Industrial Bank indicate that the UAE's textile industry is worth $4 billion. The Ministry of Finance and National Economy put the number of ready-made garment factories in the UAE at 150 with a combined capital of nearly $69 million.