Ras Al Khaimah Investment Authority (Rakia), the government body responsible for the emirate’s socio-economic growth, has announced that it recently signed an MoU with the Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (APIIC) which is establishing the $5 billion Hyderabad Economic City, an integrated financial hub and healthcare city.

Dr Khater Massaad, Rakia CEO, said: “The MoU we have signed with the Andhra Pradesh Government is primarily to jointly assess the feasibility of setting up projects like the proposed Hyderabad Economic City, and is specifically aimed at determining potential investor response. At this stage Rakia does not intend to invest in Andhra Pradesh.”     
 The MoU was signed by Wahid Attalla, board member of Rakeen, the real estate development arm of Rakia, and APIIC chairman and managing director B P Acharya in the presence of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy.
The mega project will include infrastructure facilities to support a full range of financial services, while the state-of-the-art healthcare city will provide complete facilities for clinical and non-clinical services. Hyderabad Economic City is part of several large-scale satellite townships in which Rakia and master developer Rakeen are involved in several key cities across India.
Hyderabad Economic City’s financial sector will provide essential infrastructure to support back-office operations for banking, insurance and asset management companies. It will also provide key facilities to host corporate centres for financial services, product markets, capital market and trading operations, IT services, business processing operations, plug-and-play intelligent buildings and IT parks.
Rakia is developing several other townships across the country through Rakindo, Rakia’s joint venture company in India. Over 3,000 acres of land have been earmarked for various projects in Coimbatore, Chennai, Kumarakom, Hosur and Cochin, each with a projected cost of $2 billion.