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The Dubai Internet City (DIC) is ramping up its global expansion following its announcement that it will open a business centre in China. There are plans to set up international IT clusters and business support centres over the next few years, said a top official. At least three DIC clones two in India and one in Malta are envisaged. Pakistan and Iran are also being considered. "We are looking at other areas to develop DIC clusters or smart cities and open business centres in the long term. These initiatives are in response to requests from our DIC clients," said Jamal Abdul Salam, DIC executive director. "We are finalising our strategy with a clear focus on nurturing our business partner relationships and extending them our support beyond the DIC borders," he said. DIC's business centre in Shenzen, China, serves as a coordinating office, helping to arrange meetings for DIC's business partners when they visit China, providing meeting rooms, logistics support and other back office help. The international satellite IT clusters will complement DIC. "We recognise that skilled workforce here in Dubai is not cheap, but we are close to areas where skills are cost competitive," said Salam. In India the IT parks are planned in Kochi and Hyderabad. DIC recently signed an MoU with the Kerala state government to set up the cluster in Kochi, while Hyderabad is still in the evaluation stage, he said. Under the terms of the MoU, the Kerala government will transfer ownership of the present Infopark project, an IT business park in Kochi, to DIC. This will be merged into the Smart City project that will be developed adjacent to it. "Kochi is an untapped market with a large skilled workforce. A feasibility survey we conducted drew an enthusiastic response to the idea of setting up a cluster in that city," he said. A consultant will be appointed soon to draw up the masterplan for the park. Meanwhile, DIC is expecting to get its ISO 9002 certification shortly and is also aiming to implement the Six Sigma total quality management systems. DIC now has 780 business partners in the zone. "While many well known international IT companies are here there are still big ones out there that we are going after, they are on our radar," said Salam. DIC is expanding office space with 27 new towers being built within the city. Deflecting the questions on profitability, Salam however said that DIC's success can be measured by the fact that it is two years ahead in meeting its objectives. "We have achieved today what we expected to achieve in 2007, and that speaks for itself," he said.
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