Growth during pandemic? RAK Economic Zone reports up to 20% spike in companies registered in 2020

Gulf News

Despite the challenges brought by COVID-19, the number of business locators saw up to 20% spike at the Ral Al Khaimah Economic Zone (RAKEZ). Gulf News’ exclusive interview with Ramy Jallad, Group CEO.  See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km  #economy #business #RasAlKhaimah

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00:00The free zones is always going to be a very powerful economic driver for any economy.

00:05And I think that there's a lot of growth opportunities. I think there's a new norm.

00:09We're really glad to have Mr. Rami Jalad, the Chief Executive Officer of the RAK, Ras Al

00:31Khaimah Economic Zone. Give us a general sense of the RAKiz.

00:35RAKiz was the culmination of several free zones in Ras Al Khaimah. That was under one umbrella,

00:44RAKiz, in 2017. Since then, we've become a powerhouse. Businesses from 100 different

00:52countries covering 50 different industries. We have a family of 15,000 companies registered

01:00and licensed at RAKiz. Today, we are a powerhouse, as I mentioned, for SMEs, for startups,

01:09for freelancers, for manufacturing, and for industry. Ras Al Khaimah has always been known

01:14as a powerful industrial hub. The whole ecosystem of Ras Al Khaimah allows RAKiz to be a cost

01:22effective solution for anybody starting a business. Our whole ecosystem is developed

01:30under the slogan, Make, Manage, Move. So you can make things here, you can manage the supply chain,

01:38and you can move things from a logistic perspective all over the world. And these

01:44are the services, the end-to-end value chain that we provide to all different types of customers.

01:49How has RAKiz managed to retain its customers or locators, especially in the last

02:0010 or so months for you with the pandemic? Well, you know, the pandemic

02:06has brought a lot of challenges for everybody across the world. I believe that

02:13because of our effective planning strategy,

02:19because of our foresight and vision in terms of digitizing everything, because of our resilience

02:27in dealing with the situation, we have managed to, as they say, control and prepare for the rebound.

02:35The pandemic has allowed us to be very agile and to even focus more on our customer centricity.

02:44We've extended, you've asked me, what have we done? You know, everybody on their minds has been

02:49the safety and rest, so we've put in all measures to ensure that both our staff and our customers

03:00operate in a safe environment. We have been on a digital transformation journey in the last two

03:08years, so when the pandemic came and we had to close down, it was all go with remote working,

03:15it was all go with our portal, and it showed us that our systems work. We quickly allocated

03:21a 50 million dirham relief fund that helped dealing with our customers' concerns. So we

03:28dealt with the pandemic well, no doubt that there are challenges in the marketplace where customers

03:36will still feel this impact, but we're always there to support and look at our customers' needs

03:40and requirements. People have left their jobs, so there are more entrepreneurs in the market. We got

03:47a lot of feedback from our clients, we got a lot of feedback from our prospects, we created new

03:52packages for entrepreneurs, for people who want to start businesses at a very cost-effective rate.

03:58We saw a lot of uptake in the e-learning, in the e-commerce. We were the first people to launch

04:08our woman-licensed product, so we either enhanced these products to adapt to the new norm, or we

04:16created new products. Among these industries that you mentioned, manufacturing, industrial,

04:23life sciences, e-commerce content, and e-learning, what are the most active industries? Based on the

04:29new norm and what the world is going through, you see a lot of companies, new and current,

04:34very much active in PPE, which is personal protection equipment,

04:40healthcare, life sciences, pharmaceutical, but to support that. The other main activity would be, I think,

04:49in the e-commerce. We've seen a lot of platforms come up, a lot of online purchasing, so we've seen

04:55a big uptake in the e-commerce. We've seen a huge demand in learning and e-learning at a distance,

05:03and a lot of the IT digitization and digital development of companies that have been

05:14operating at full force during this pandemic. You'd be also surprised to know that a lot of

05:21people are looking at consolidating a lot of their businesses as well, so we've seen a lot of

05:28family offices, we've seen a lot of movement in manufacturing and logistics. What is your

05:35sense of where the general direction of the free zones is going? The free zones are always

05:44going to be a very powerful economic driver for any economy, and I think that there's a lot of

05:49growth opportunities. I think there's a new norm. These zones will be looking at new opportunities,

05:55new service opportunities, and a lot of diversification. The world is changing not

06:00only in terms of the market and COVID, but there's a lot of new ambitions, compliance requirements,

06:08so I believe the shift for free zones to move to quality rather than quantity is going to be very

06:15evident very soon. I think there will be a lot of diversification in terms of the businesses.

06:19The market is opening up more and more for investors to come in with more business conducive

06:25regulations and incentives in the region, so I think a lot of the free zones will be shifting

06:33their focuses to diversification and really focusing on customer experience. Have you

06:39actually seen the number of SMEs and startups going up? Yes, we've had a big up on this

06:47my business package and many other SME packages as well. The women product, women

06:53license, the e-commerce people in my business package, the training, virtual training packages,

07:01the number of clients that we have attracted this year in 2020 exceeded the number of clients that

07:12we attracted in 2018 because of the introduction of these new products and services.

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