Khalifa Industrial Zone Abu Dhabi (Kizad) announced on 1 July an agreement with the region’s exclusive provider of packaging for McDonald’s.
Gulf Printing and Packaging – a new subsidiary of Kuwait’s Al Khat Packaging – is to build an AED80m ($22m) plant under a 50-year land-lease deal.
Al Khat is one of Kuwait’s largest producers of printing and packaging materials and the only approved provider of packaging materials for McDonalds in the entire Middle East, said Kizad.
The new facility, which is set to operate from 2016, will be Al Khat’s first production plant outside Kuwait.
Located in Kizad’s ‘Mixed Use’ cluster, the plant will cover a 22,000m2 plot of land and produce folding paper packaging and printing products, especially for the UAE, Saudi Arabia and South Africa.
Kizad CEO Khaled Salmeen said Gulf Printing and Packaging will “considerably add to Kizad’s industrial landscape”.
“We are delighted to welcome our Kuwaiti business partners, who will significantly benefit from Kizad’s strategic location with market access to 4.5bn people worldwide, its multimodal transportation network, which includes our flagship deepwater Khalifa Port, as well as its business friendly environment and competitive operating costs,” said Salmeen.
“Al Khat Packaging’s choice of settling in Kizad is another indicator that our efforts to Kizad announces 50-year deal with offshoot of Kuwaiti producer establish the industrial zone regionally and globally have come to fruition.
“The growing number of foreign investors shows that we are moving in the right direction in diversifying the economy and developing Kizad into one of the world’s largest industrial zones.”
Al Khat General Manager Mohamed Abou Khalid said settling in Kizad is “the answer to our growing international customer base and, consequently, to the increasing demand for our products”.
“Our plant in Kizad offers us the opportunity to be closer to our international clients and to serve them more efficiently, especially through Khalifa Port,” he said.
“Kizad’s excellent infrastructure and business environment will help us to maintain our high production standards and further develop our capacities on a global scale.”