The total investment in GCC is estimated at $394.9bn in the industrial sector the GCC region with 17,596 factories employ approximately 1.66 million workers, said Abdulaziz bin Hamad Al Ageel (pictured), Secretary General, Gulf Organization for Industrial Consulting (GOIC).
He was speaking at the 1st Gulf Statistical Forum organised by the General Authority for Statistics and the GCC Statistical Centre (GCC-Stat) in Riyadh.
The Secretary General said GOIC’s IMI Plus data revealed that 3,125 factories operated in the manufacture of metal products (except machinery and equipment), followed by 2,978 factories in the manufacturing of non-metallic mineral products, 2,025 factories in the manufacture of rubber and plastics products, and then the remaining areas.
The biggest share of cumulative investments went to the manufacturing of chemicals and chemical products with investments worth $110.6bn, followed by the manufacture of coke and refined petroleum products ($98.9bn), the manufacture of basic metals (approximately $59bn), the manufacture of other non-metallic mineral products (around $40.2bn) and then the rest of industries.
Al Ageel highlighted that the Gulf industrial sector offered job opportunities to approximately 1.66 million workers, most of them (16.7 percent) in the manufacture of other non-metallic mineral products with 278,400 workers, followed by the manufacture of metal products (except machinery and equipment) with 255,700 workers, the manufacture of food products with 194,600 workers, the manufacture of rubber and plastics with 137,400 workers, and then the remaining industries.
As to factories, Al Ageel said they varied between small, medium and big enterprises. There were 11,969 small; 2,701 medium and 2,926 big factories in the GCC in 2016. The largest share of big and medium factories went to Saudi Arabia with 1,774 big and 1,531 medium factories, while the UAE had the biggest share of small factories (5,433), followed by Oman with 1,284 factories.
In this regard, GOIC takes into account the unified invested capital as a criterion to distinguish between types of Gulf industries, after carrying out a thorough review of the components of GCC manufacturing industries.
Consequently, small industries have less than $2m invested in each of them, medium industries have a capital of $2m to $6m each, while big industries receive six millions and more worth of investments.
Moreover, GOIC took part in the accompanying exhibition. It’s booth featured an overview of its various programmes such as the Gulf Subcontracting and Partnership Exchange (GSPX), the Industrial Market Information and its IMI Plus, the Training and Capacity Development (TCD), the SME Industrial Technical Assistance (ITA), the Manufacturing Investment Opportunities Program (MIOP) and the Industrial Studies and Policies (ISP)
