Jebel Ali Free Zone (Jafza), the flagship Free Zone operation of Economic Zones World, has held an extensive roadshow in Buenos Aires to attract new Argentinian companies to the Free Zone.
The 2-day Jafza roadshow in Argentina included several one-to-one meetings with Argentinian corporates and entrepreneurs besides three focused business seminars under the theme “Dubai Your Gateway to the Middle East, Africa, CIS and Indian Subcontinent”.
More than 100 leading Argentinian companies from diverse sectors ranging from food, healthcare to electronics, construction material and oil and gas, attended these seminars. Most of the companies have shown keen interest in Jafza to capitalize on the emerging opportunities in the region.
Jafza roadshow in Argentina was led by Adil Al Zarooni, Senior Vice President and included Ahmed Bin Hareb, Senior Manager – Americas Region and Zilda Rosa, Executive Sales.
The first seminar was organized by The Argentinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Worship and was attended by senior officials from the Ministry including the Under Secretary of Investment Development and Trade Promotion and HE the UAE Ambassador in Argentina. The seminar was attended by more than 50 Argentinian exporters and manufacturers interested in the Middle East markets.
In his welcome address the Under Secretary of Investment Development and Trade Promotion, emphasized on the need to strengthen bilateral trade ties between Argentina and the UAE particularly Dubai and Jafza through greater public – private sector collaborations. He also underlined the strategic importance of Jafza as a gateway and trade and logistics hub to efficiently serve the region.
HE the UAE Ambassador in Argentina talked about growth opportunities for Argentinian exporters in the region through Jafza.
Adil Al Zarooni in his speech highlighted huge growth in the Middle East region and consequent surge in demand for food and other consumer goods that Argentinean companies can capitalise on by being in Jafza. He also briefed investors on the strategic importance of Jafza as a hub to reach and serve the entire region most efficiently.
In his presentation Al Zarooni also talked about Jafza’s recent move to develop Dubai as the global hub for Halal products.
Adil Al Zarooni said:
“The Middle East is one of the fastest growing regions in the world. The countries in the region are making huge investments in building economic and social infrastructure in order to reduce their dependence on oil and build a sustainable economy. This has, and will, continue to provide huge push to economic activities and consequent rise in demand for all kind of products in these markets ranging from food, healthcare, beauty products to building material and everything in-between. This provides huge opportunities to Argentinian entrepreneurs who are market leaders in many of these sectors.”
Talking about Dubai’s recent move to position the emirate as a global hub for Halal products he highlighted key features of two Halal Zones being developed in Jafza and TechnoPark to cater to the regional and international Halal product markets, respectively.
EZW plans to develop Halal Zones as all-inclusive hubs, supported with world-class infrastructure, perfectly suited to attract leading enterprises in the entire gamut of halal industry. EZW seeks to collaborate and attract organisations, associations, accreditation bodies, R&D, as well as advisory firms to support the entire halal value chain right from R&D, product development to sourcing, production, logistics, sales and marketing.
Al Zarooni also highlighted the Free Zone’s incubator concept, which is designed to attract and support SMEs in the Free Zone from different countries.
Al Zarooni said:
“The Incubation Facility helps SMEs to explore business prospects in the region at a very nominal cost. Incubation Centre is essentially a collaborative initiative between Jafza and the interested country to support SMEs. Under the scheme Jafza offers Incubator facility to the designated state Agency, who in turn allocates spaces in the centre to interested SMEs from their respective countries.
“We will be more than happy to extend this support to Argentinean companies to enable them to explore opportunities in the region from Jafza, which is gateway to the Middle East’s huge consumer markets.”
Argentina is the third largest economy in Latin America. Agri-products remain the country’s largest export commodity.
“Argentina wants to use Dubai as a hub to export and market their agro-industrial and livestock products in the Middle East and globally. Ministry of Agriculture, livestock and Fisheries, Argentina and the Department of Economic Development, Dubai had signed a joint statement of co-operation to this affect in May 2012. The present roadshow seeks to take this idea to the next level. Halal Zones in Jafza and TechnoPark provide huge opportunities for Argentinian companies that need to be availed of,” said Ahmed Bin Hareb speaking at the business seminar.
The other two Jafza seminars were conducted in collaboration with COPAL the Chamber of Chambers for all the Food and Beverage industry in Argentina and HSBC respectively.
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The COPAL – Jafza seminar was attended by the COPAL officials including its President, senior officials from the Ministry of Agriculture and over 30 leading companies from the F&B sector. The Agriculture Ministry expressed its interest in setting up an incubator for Argentinian entrepreneurs interested in exploring business opportunities in the region.
HSBC – Jafza seminar was attended by more than 20 leading players from Argentina’s agriculture sector interested in the rapidly growing UAE and other markets in the Middle East.
With the remarkable success of the roadshow Jafza expects to attract good number of new companies from Argentina this year.
Argentina-Jafza trade has more than doubled in the last four years to cross AED 240 million in 2013 from AED 104 million in 2009. The trade essentially reflects Argentina’s growing exports to the GCC markets. The expected growth in the number of Argentinian companies in the Free Zone will provide further boost to the bilateral trade between Jafza and Argentina.
Originally published on www.jazfa.ae