Siemens LLC signed an official Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) this week with the Dubai Internet City (DIC), confirming its intention to move its regional operations into a new Siemens building in the City by mid-2003. The move will make Siemens the largest tenant of the DIC to date.
“DIC is the ideal base for the company to continue its rapid and consistent growth in the Gulf region, taking advantage of the positioning of the DIC as the regional hub for technology and telecommunications sectors,” according to Siemens officials,
The Siemens building will house a number of the company’s business units’ regional offices for the lower Gulf—including the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Oman, Bahrain, Qatar and Yemen. It will also include regional headquarters operations for telecommunications businesses across the Middle East and beyond. The new facility will house an initial team of 300, with plan to expand this over time.
Some of the business units with lower gulf operations at the new facility will include Power Transmission and Distribution, Industrial Solutions and Services, Information and Communications Networks (Enterprise Networks), the IT Services Group and the corporate operations for the Siemens LLC territory.
Among the business units with operations that cover the Middle East and beyond, are the Information and Communications Mobile division’s units for Networks and Devices. The Devices unit includes Siemens Mobile Phones, which is today the second largest mobile phone brand in the region, according to a company press release. Also part of the move will be the Information Security unit, which covers a larger global territory spanning Asia, the Middle East and Africa.
Speaking to the press at the signing of the MOU, Senior Member of the Corporate Executive Committee and head of Siemens’ operations in the Middle East, Africa and the CIS, Volker Jung, said: ”This move is a sign of our ongoing commitment to the region and the strengthening of our presence here. The DIC’s infrastructure provides an ideal environment for the development and growth of our businesses, especially those related to information technology and telecommunications.”
“Partnering with companies on the cutting edge of technology like Siemens is important to DIC’s strategy of becoming a global hub for the knowledge economy,” said Mohammad Al-Gergawi, director general of the Dubai Technology, E-Commerce and Media Free Zone and DIC chairman.
CEO of Siemens LLC Joachim Kundt said: “This region has provided a consistent level of growth and opportunity for our organization for many decades. We started in the 1930s with telegraph networks in the region, and our first major step in the UAE was in 1976 for the project to build the earth satellite station in Ras Al-Khaimah. Since then, Siemens has played a major role in the development of infrastructure regionally, from power and medical solutions, to telecommunications, industrial automation and information technology.”
Siemens LLC was established in late 1999 to manage the operations of the organization’s various business units in the UAE, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar and Yemen. Siemens LLC also incorporates the Middle East headquarters of the Siemens ICM group, which covers the entire Middle East, Iran and Pakistan.
In the fiscal 2001, ending 30 September 2001, new orders received by all Siemens companies in the lower gulf totaled €350 million ($308 million), while sales totaled €425 million. The company is active in five core sectors including energy, information and communications, medical solutions, automation and control and transportation.
In the power sector, Siemens built the Jebel Ali G station, the Taweelah A2 Power plant for CMS and recently won the one billion euro order for the 1,500 MW Shuweihat project. In the information and communications sector, Siemens’s mobile networks unit recently built the first GSM network in Yemen, Sabafone, in five weeks while the networks group was the contractor for the cable TV pilot project. In 2000, Siemens Business Services was the prime contractor and system integrator for Phase Zero of the Dubai Internet City.
Siemens AG, headquartered in Munich, is a global electronics and engineering company. It employs over 484,000 people in 193 countries, and reported worldwide sales in excess of €87 billion in fiscal 2001. Siemens is a leading provider of advanced technology solutions in the information and communications, medical, power, automation and control, transportation and lighting sectors. — (menareport.com)
© 2002 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
