The total investment by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) countries has reached $15.3bn in 2014, the Gulf Organisation for Industrial Consulting (Goic) has said.
Goic secretary general Abdulaziz bin Hamad al-Ageel said the amount is equivalent to 4.1% of the total investments in the Gulf industrial sector, which amounts to $380.1bn. He added that $6bn of these investments were in small-scale industries and $9.4bn in medium industries.
“For the classification of industries, Goic relies on the uniformly invested capital standard to distinguish the different types of Gulf industries after a thorough review of the manufacturing industry database components in GCC states where small industries are those that have investments less than $2mn while medium-sized industries are those with a capital ranging between $2mn and $6mn,” al-Ageel explained.
He also said the number of small and medium-sized factories in GCC countries was 13,480 in 2014, including 10,809 small factories and 2,671 medium factories. These factories represent 82.7% of the total number of manufacturing industries in the GCC estimated at 16,292.
Goic data showed that small and medium-sized factories accounted for 82.7% of the total number of factories operating in manufacturing industries in 2014.
In terms of workforce, al-Ageel said small and medium industries employed 674,933 workers, or 44.1%, of the total number of workers in manufacturing industries, which hire roughly 1.5mn workers.
Small industries have hired 28.7% of the total employees, while medium industries recruited 15.5%.
“Small and medium industries are distributed numerically on all industrial activities, but they are largely concentrated on the activity of construction metals, transportation, and other industries with 3,683 factories constituting 27% of the total number of small and medium- sized factories,” al-Ageel said.
He added that non-metallic material or the building materials industry came in second place with 2,297 plants, accounting for nearly 17% of the total number of small and medium-sized factories, followed by the food and beverage industries and rubber and plastics products with 11%.
In terms of accumulated capital, structural metals manufacturing, transportation, and other industries ranked first at $3.9bn, accounting for about 25% of the total investments in small and medium-sized industries. The building materials industry ranked second place with $3.2bn or 21%, followed by food products and beverages ($1.9bn, 13%), and rubber and plastics ($1.7bn, 10.8%).
As for the number of employees, construction metals, transportation, and other industries ranked first with 184,000 workers or 27% of the volume of workers in small and medium-sized industries.
The building materials industry ranked second with 118,000 workers or 17% of the total number of workers in small and medium-industries, followed by food products and beverages (71,000 workers, 10%), and manufacturing of rubber and plastic products (65,000 workers, 53%).