KEZAD or Khalifa Economic Zones Abu Dhabi - KEZAD Group () was launched by AD Ports Group on September 19, 2022, as part of the plan to consolidate and grow its Economic Cities and Free Zones offering.

Background

As part of its plans to achieve economic diversification by 2030, the

Abu Dhabi Abu Dhabi is the capital city of the United Arab Emirates. The city is the seat of the Abu Dhabi Central Capital District, the capital city of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, and the UAE's List of cities in the United Arab Emirates, second-most popu ...

Government drew up plans to launch a multibillion-dollar industrial park and ports operation on a greenfield site in Taweelah (adjacent to the newly built

Khalifa Port Khalifa Port () is the Abu Dhabi Ports' flagship deepwater port. It is a gateway to Abu Dhabi and handles all of the emirate’s container traffic. The transfer of container traffic from Zayed Port was completed in December 2012. Khalifa Port ...

) which would become the emirate's first industrial free zone offering 100 per cent foreign ownership. By 2030, Kizad is expected to contribute up to 15% of the emirate's non-oil

GDP Gross domestic product (GDP) is a monetary measure of the total market value of all the final goods and services produced and rendered in a specific time period by a country or countries. GDP is often used to measure the economic performance o ...

Location

Besides its proximity to the state-of-the-art

, the industrial zone is located almost equidistant between

and

Dubai Dubai (Help:IPA/English, /duːˈbaɪ/ Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''doo-BYE''; Modern Standard Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic: ; Emirati Arabic, Emirati Arabic: , Romanization of Arabic, romanized: Help:IPA/English, /diˈbej/) is the Lis ...

, with extended frontage along the E11 Highway connecting the two cities. An additional arterial roadway is planned, linking Kizad to

Al Ain Al Ain () is a city in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, and the seat of the administrative division of the Al Ain Region. The city is Oman–United Arab Emirates border, bordered to the east by the Omani town of Al-Buraimi. Al A ...

, the UAE's largest inland city. In addition, these roads link the zone to three major international airports – Abu Dhabi International Airport (),

Al Maktoum International Airport Al Maktoum International Airport , also known as Dubai World Central, is an international airport in Jebel Ali, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, that opened on 27 June 2010. Located southwest of the city of Dubai, it is the main part of Dubai So ...

(), and

Dubai International Airport Dubai International Airport () is the primary international airport serving Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and is the world's busiest airport by international passenger traffic as of 2024. It is also the busiest airport in the Middle East as ...

(). KEZAD's strategic location linking the east and west, and its intermodal infrastructure linking sea, air, roads and rail, gives investors easy and efficient access to over 4.5 billion consumers within four time zones.

KIZAD Logistics Park

For logistics operations, firms based in the KIZAD Logistics Park (KLP) enjoy facilities including high-spec pre-built warehouses spread over 1.3 million square feet.

Investors

KIZAD's anchor investor, Emirates Aluminium (EMAL), which aims to be one of the world's largest single-site Aluminium smelters, began operations in 2009. It currently produces 800,000 tons of Aluminium at Kizad and with increasing demand for Aluminium, the local market will reach 1.3 million tons with the inauguration of its phase two very soon. According to media reports, KIZAD could lead to the creation of more than 150,000 jobs due to a deal signed with more than 50 local and international companies. By late 2013, these logistics and heavy industry manufacturing investors included Bauer, KSB, Al Braik Investments LLC, Palletco, Brasil Foods (BRF), City Pharmacy, and Emirates Calcium Carbonate Factory which all signed up long-term leases at Kizad and began constructing facilities on the site. In a March 2014, media interview, KIZAD's then CEO, Samir Chaturvedi, stated the industrial zone will hand over pre-built warehouses spread across more than one million square feet in the newly developed Kizad Logistics Park (KLP) to tenants later that month. The interview followed on from the news that major UAE supermarket chain, Spinneys, had inked a 50-year deal to build and operate a dedicated cold storage distribution center across 382.9 thousand square feet in KIZAD."Kizad to hand over close to 1.3m sq ft in warehouse space"
Gulf News. 2014-03-09. Retrieved 2014-03-12

References

External links