SAIF Zone roadshows to attract Indian investors

Sharjah Airport International Free Zone (SAIF Zone) has carried out an extensive series of marketing roadshows across India this year, promoting the free zone in key cities and states throughout the country. This week, the free zone presented its proposition to investors in Kolkata in West Bengal, the third-most populous metropolitan area in India. Over the past 20 years, SAIF Zone has become a magnet for Indian investors and entrepreneurs, with 48 percent of the 7,500-plus companies registered in the free zone being of Indian origin. The free zone’s strategic location, free import and export, single-day licence issuance and tax-free status have proved to be a hit with Indian SMEs. India is one of the UAE’s primary trading partners, accounting for about 9.8 percent of the country’s total non-oil trade, buying 14.9 percent of the Emirates’ exports and 8.7 percent of its re-exports. Economists expect the total volume of bilateral trade between India and the UAE to increase from USD 60 billion in 2014 to USD 100 billion by the year 2020.

A frequent visitor to India, Sharjah Airport International Free Zone embarked on it’s 2016 Indian road show in January. Organising events in association with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), the zone first targeted Aurangabad and Pune in Maharashtra state and neighbouring Goa, before attending the MSME Business Summit in New Delhi (held with the support of India’s Ministry of Micro-Small and Medium Enterprises). Following this, the free zone also held roadshow events in Faridabad in India’s National Capital Area bordering on New Delhi; Chandigarh and Jalandhar in the northwestern state of Punjab; and Gwalior in in Madhya Pradesh. In April, SAIF Zone took its message to Mangaluru (formerly Mangalore), the main port city of the southern Indian state of Karnataka, in cooperation with the Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO).