Tune in to this week’s Tell Me Why podcast episode as Maria Botros speaks to Ismail Al Naqi, Director General at Free Zones Authority of Ajman, about Ajman’s diverse economy and entrepreneurial opportunities.
Ismail: Ajman, historically, has been pro-business since the inception of the country and trade is embedded in the DNA of the nation’s leadership
Ajman was the regional destination for garment trade, exporting to Europe and the US, says Ismail
Ismail: The industrial segment contributes to around 35-38 percent of Ajman’s GDP
All government departments in Ajman are proactively designing solutions that cater to start-ups, says Ismail
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Subscribe to Gulf News on YouTube and watch more of our videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/GulfNewsTV
#UAEnews #podcast #ajman
Ismail: Ajman, historically, has been pro-business since the inception of the country and trade is embedded in the DNA of the nation’s leadership
Ajman was the regional destination for garment trade, exporting to Europe and the US, says Ismail
Ismail: The industrial segment contributes to around 35-38 percent of Ajman’s GDP
All government departments in Ajman are proactively designing solutions that cater to start-ups, says Ismail
See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos
Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km
Subscribe to Gulf News on YouTube and watch more of our videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/GulfNewsTV
#UAEnews #podcast #ajman
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NewsTranscript
00:00We understand the pain that they go through.
00:02The entrepreneurship journey is not a rosy journey.
00:06It's a bumpy journey.
00:07It's a challenging journey.
00:09And we want to be part of the solution in this journey
00:12where we design solutions and packages for them
00:16that are almost the most affordable and cost-effective packages
00:23across the entire region.
00:25But not only that, we reflected our ethics
00:28when we say that these packages are all-inclusive.
00:33Literally, there is no hidden charges.
00:36Why? Because we want those entrepreneurs to focus on securing their business
00:41and growing their business, not on the bureaucracy of the government.
00:45All right, all right.
00:58Welcome back to a new episode of Tell Me Why.
01:01Joining me in the studio is one of the most special guests I'm going to have in here.
01:06He's someone that I met at an event, made us all laugh, has a sense of humor,
01:12and we're going to get into that.
01:14He loves to speak about the presence of women in his life,
01:19and he definitely gave us a good laugh during the event.
01:23Joining me is Ismail Al-Naqi.
01:25He's the Director General of FreeZone's Authority in Ajman.
01:28How are you, Ismail?
01:29I'm fine. Thank you very much for receiving me here today.
01:33It's such a pleasant moment to be here with you.
01:38Indeed, it was a pleasure meeting you at the Women Entrepreneurship event.
01:44It was a joyful event.
01:46Thank you for putting that amazing event together.
01:48Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us.
01:50Before we dive into a lot of the technical information that we want to speak to you about today,
01:56I want to get to know you a bit more.
01:58Tell us about yourself.
01:59How did you start at the FreeZone's Authority of Ajman,
02:02and what was your experience like before that,
02:05and was it something that you thought you would get into?
02:08Well, it's quite an interesting story,
02:11but if I go back to the beginning of my career,
02:14and this might be quite interesting for the fresh graduates
02:19who are choosing the path that they want to follow in their life.
02:23I remember applying in three organizations,
02:27EPCO, Emirates, and Dubai.
02:31Fortunately, I got accepted in all three of them.
02:35But the most interesting package that I received was from EPCO.
02:39Okay.
02:40But I decided to take that opportunity.
02:42And the reason why, because during the interview,
02:45the HR manager was telling me that
02:49the role that you'll be doing in EPCO is as if you're running your own business.
02:54So this was the word that convinced me.
02:57Nice.
02:58And I can proudly say that I was the first UAE national to run a gas station.
03:06Wow.
03:07So I was part of the first batch who were trained to run the gas station.
03:11It was the first Enoch gas station in Sheikh Zayed Road.
03:15Amazing.
03:16But then a year later, I was given the opportunity to join
03:23the founding team of Dubai Intercity back in 2000.
03:27And Dubai Intercity was a revolutionary step in Dubai economical milestones.
03:36It was the momentum that Dubai Intercity has injected,
03:44and the trajectory of Dubai was amazing.
03:47After Dubai Intercity, I worked on developing a concept which is called Dubai Outsource Zone,
03:56which is another free zone.
03:57So I worked on it from the conceptualization till the delivery.
04:03After Dubai Outsource Zone, I was given the bigger responsibility
04:08to become the managing director of the operation for the entire TECOM group
04:12to consolidate the operation and to create efficiency and effectiveness,
04:18because Dubai TECOM investments or TECOM group was the largest business park operator in the region,
04:26operating about 11 free zones.
04:29So we had to create that service vertical that will service all the free zones.
04:35And then in 2014, I decided to do my own things.
04:40So I ventured out into the private business.
04:43I did that for five years.
04:46Got into the manufacturing and precision engineering,
04:53and I was doing a lot of projects for the military.
05:00In 2019, I sold off that business, and I joined the government of Ajman.
05:05Okay.
05:06I was asked by the government of Ajman to join
05:11to enable the creation of a disruption in the government services.
05:18So I joined as the head of the Ajman government excellence program,
05:26and the idea was basically to encourage the entire government to elevate their services,
05:34their customer approach, and to embrace mainly customer-centric positioning
05:42when it comes to addressing the public or the customers.
05:47And then toward the end of 2023,
05:52in 2022, I was requested to head the free zones authority of Ajman.
06:01And the free zones authority of Ajman is the largest economical catalyst in Ajman,
06:06which is comprising of Ajman Free Zone, Ajman Media City, China Mall,
06:14Ajman U.S. Car Showroom, and at the same time, we're the regulator also of Al Zohra City.
06:21Wow.
06:22So it is the largest economical catalyst that is fostering and boosting the economy in Ajman.
06:30Our mandate is basically to continue the growth trajectory by launching more specialized business districts
06:39and special economic zones and free zones to stimulate diversification in the economy
06:46and to contribute significantly to the creative economy that we all aspire to build,
06:52which in turn will have definitely a positive impact on job creations,
07:00on the economy in general, fostering entrepreneurship landscape in the Emirate of Ajman.
07:08So here you go, I have summarized the last 25 years of my life.
07:14To be honest, this is the longest I've gone on the podcast, especially in the introduction, silent,
07:21because I'm in awe.
07:22I mean, you look so young, you've accomplished so much, and I find it fascinating.
07:28And I think it's crucial that we bring on guests like yourself on the show to give youngsters and future entrepreneurs
07:36and not even entrepreneurs, but just graduates that are looking to get into the professional world,
07:42to give them that hope, to give them that perseverance to really follow their dreams
07:49and to keep fighting and to continue to be persistent.
07:51So thank you for that. That was a spot-on introduction.
07:56And to be honest, it was a good transition into what we want to discuss.
08:01So how is Ajman turning into an investment destination?
08:06How are you attracting businesses and entrepreneurs?
08:10You know, if we go, I mean, Ajman historically has been pro-business ever since the inception
08:16or even before the inception of the country.
08:20So trade is embedded in the DNA of the leadership, of the public in general,
08:30but not only exclusively to Ajman, because this is the DNA of the country in general.
08:36You know, the country was built on, you know, if we go back to the 50s,
08:41you know, the economy was built on pearl finding.
08:43And then in the 60s, there was the exploration of oil.
08:47And then all this trade boom has happened across the country.
08:52But Ajman has always been that city full of dynamism, very small, close proximity to Dubai,
09:04pioneered actually in a lot of industries, marine industry.
09:10If we look at the contribution of Ajman in the marine industry here in the UAE or globally,
09:15Ajman has produced a lot of marine companies like Gulfcraft and Asha'ali Marine.
09:25And then when it comes to the garment, Ajman used to be the regional destination for garments
09:31where it was exploring, exporting to Europe and the U.S.
09:39Today, food processing is one of the pivotal verticals in Ajman economy.
09:48Even industrial, I mean, industrial segment contributes to about 35 to 38 percent of the GDP of Ajman,
09:56despite the small size of Ajman.
09:58But we can see a huge contribution from the industrial segment into the economy of Ajman.
10:06But, you know, as cities evolve, you know, you start from the lower end of the value chain,
10:14and then you start to evolve, you start embracing high tech,
10:17and then you get into the more specialized industries and you get into the more value industries,
10:23and especially the constraints that we have in Ajman being the smallest city in the UAE.
10:31This challenge creates an opportunity.
10:35It becomes a driver for you to keep on pushing for growing higher in the value chain
10:40and attracting more specialized companies that are some of them in a niche industries and niche segments.
10:53But as I mentioned in my introduction, the role of my role and the role of the free zones authorities
11:01to diversify the economy and within the landscape of the next five years,
11:06we're going to see a lot of small business districts mushrooming in the city,
11:11creating that specialized ecosystem for specific industries to be able to address that specific industry
11:19in a bespoke manner and creating the right ecosystem that will service that,
11:25be it education or outsourcing or high tech or digital assets.
11:30So we're open to explore all the industries, whatever is fitting correctly with the city strategy.
11:41We're a small city and we're not going to embark on giga project or mega project.
11:49All our projects are going to be bespoke, small, specialized, and with very high turnaround.
11:56Amazing. So you were just mentioning that you will see an increase in medium to small businesses
12:05basically setting up shop in these free zones.
12:09Can you tell us, since you started with the authority, how many businesses were there
12:15and how has that number grown and what industries have you seen come into the free zones?
12:20So be it tech, engineering, media.
12:24Yeah. I mean, if we look at the free zones in general,
12:28the free zones in general in the UAE has gone through a series of evolutions.
12:33Ever since the inception of Jabal Ali Free Zone.
12:36The second free zone, by the way, in the UAE is Ajman Free Zone.
12:41Amazing.
12:42Yeah. So now looking at the characteristics of the city of Ajman being small,
12:56younger generation, it fits naturally with the entrepreneurs.
13:02Yes.
13:03But not only that. You know, entrepreneurs and companies who are looking to start up their businesses,
13:09the most important thing for them, the first part of their business journey is to control their cost.
13:17And this is something that we master in Ajman.
13:22You know, Ajman has the words affordability is synonymous to Ajman.
13:28Right.
13:30And when we look at it, and this is, by the way, by design, it's not by chance, you know,
13:34and this is how the government policies has been developed to control the cost of living in the city.
13:44But then businesses look at it differently.
13:47They look at something called the total cost of ownership.
13:49It's not only the cost of setting up the company.
13:52Cost of setting up company, residence, taking their kids to school,
13:56the proximity of the city.
13:58And now the city is a 15-minute city.
14:01You don't have to drive to get your things done.
14:04You just walk wherever you want to go to.
14:07And not only that, you know, the vibe of the city is so amazing, you know.
14:16It's as if the city has two characteristics.
14:19It's a different characteristics and personality in the morning,
14:22and it's a different personality in the evening.
14:25The social fabric of the city is so amazing, the balance and the distribution of the different demographies.
14:33So when you look at the city, when you look at Ajman, it grows into you so fast, you know,
14:44because it's so organic, so authentic.
14:47And it's so business-driven, so much of a business-driven city.
14:55Everything is close by.
14:57You can reach the leadership of any organization in no time.
15:02You can reach the leadership of the city to run ideas, to share ideas with them in a very casual fashion.
15:12So I would say these are the natural characteristics.
15:18But proactively, all the government departments in Ajman are proactively analyzing
15:27and on a constant basis designing solutions that are tailor-made to startups, to micro-businesses, to SMEs.
15:38Because SMEs are the economy creators.
15:43And if we zoom and drill down to Ajman Free Zone and the Free Zones Authority in general,
15:51we try to implement our corporate ethics and corporate values in our product that we customize for our clients,
16:03where we understand the pain that they go through.
16:08The entrepreneurship journey is not a rosy journey.
16:11It's a bumpy journey.
16:12It's a challenging journey.
16:14And we want to be part of the solution in this journey,
16:18where we design solutions and packages for them that are almost the most affordable
16:26and cost-effective packages across the entire region.
16:31But not only that.
16:32We reflected our ethics when we say that these packages are all-inclusive.
16:39Literally, there are no hidden charges.
16:41Why?
16:42Because we want those entrepreneurs to focus on securing their business and growing their business,
16:48not on the bureaucracy of the government.
16:53And then when we talk about bureaucracy also, this is something, you know, it's my biggest enemy.
16:59You know, historically, setting up a company could take several days.
17:04With the design-based thinking approach that we have applied, you know, I had a vision.
17:09You know, I want to be the fastest registrar globally, not locally.
17:19And it was a painful exercise.
17:21But now, with the Free Zones Authority, you get your license in one click.
17:27Unbelievable.
17:28Before you finish your cup of coffee, your license is in your hand.
17:33It's been issued.
17:34This required disruptive thinking, required a complete transformation in our IT infrastructure,
17:40a complete transformation in our regulatory system and to our customer journey.
17:46So it was an extensive exercise that required millions of hours of collective effort
17:56to be invested in the organization to be able to come up with this output that often we take it for granted.
18:10We forget how much effort went into it, but the entrepreneurs deserve it,
18:15and we want to give it to the entrepreneur.
18:18Add the best affordable value that matches the expectation of the entrepreneur.
18:28But not only that, that's just the key that opens the door.
18:32When it comes to the government services, we truly partner with our business community.
18:41We try to help them through the entire journey from setting up the company all the way to opening a bank account
18:48and then the post-stage of the value-added services, helping them with their taxation, with their concierge services.
18:59But not only that, we also want to integrate them into our community.
19:05We create focus groups, we create a lot of networking events.
19:09Our community is comprising about 15,000 companies,
19:14so we do have a lot of events that we conduct to create these networking activities between our members.
19:22Where we see, we do see a lot of exposure for the entrepreneurs,
19:28but not only that, they would learn from others also,
19:31and they will be able to cross-sell and add value to each other.
19:37So capitalizing on this large community that we have, it's a great value-add for the entrepreneurs.