The Gulf Organisation for Industrial Consulting (Goic) has participated in the ‘1st Gulf Statistical Forum’ held under the patronage of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud in Riyadh. 
The forum, entitled ‘Strengthening Statistical Partnerships to Support Economic Policies and Sustainable Development in the GCC’, was organised by the General Authority for Statistics and the GCC Statistical Centre (GCC-Stat), in addition to international and regional stakeholders. 
During the forum, Goic secretary-general Abdulaziz bin Hamad al-Ageel announced the latest data on GCC industrial activities. He said investments amounted to $394.9bn, with 1.6mn workforce from 17,596 factories.
The secretary-general said Goic’s IMI Plus data revealed that 3,125 factories operated in the manufacture of metal products (except machinery and equipment), followed by 2,978 factories in the manufacture of non-metallic mineral products, and 2,025 factories in the manufacture of rubber and plastics products.
Al-Ageel said the biggest share of cumulative investments went to the manufacture of chemicals and chemical products with investments worth $110.6bn, followed by the manufacture of coke and refined petroleum products ($98.9bn), manufacture of basic metals ($59bn), and manufacture of other non-metallic mineral products (around $40.2bn). 
Furthermore, al-Ageel highlighted that the Gulf industrial sector offered job opportunities to 1.6mn workers, most of them (16.7%) in the manufacture of other non-metallic mineral products with 278,400 workers, followed by the manufacture of metal products (except machinery and equipment) with 255,700 workers, manufacture of food products with 194,600 workers, and manufacture of rubber and plastics with 137,400 workers.
As to factories, al-Ageel said they varied between small, medium, and big enterprises. In detail, there were 11,969 small, 2,701 medium, and 2,926 big factories in the GCC in 2016. 
The largest share of big and medium factories went to Saudi Arabia with 1,774 big and 1,531 medium factories, while the UAE had the biggest share of small factories (5,433), followed by Oman with 1,284 factories. 
In this regard, Goic takes into account the unified invested capital as a criterion to distinguish between types of Gulf industries, after carrying out a thorough review of the components of GCC manufacturing industries. 
Consequently, small industries each have less than $2mn in investments, medium industries have a capital of $2mn to $6mn each, while big industries receive $6mn or more worth of investments. 
Goic also took part in the accompanying exhibition. Its booth featured an overview of its various programmes such as the Gulf Subcontracting and Partnership Exchange (GSPX), Industrial Market Information, IMI Plus, Training and Capacity Development (TCD), SME Industrial Technical Assistance (ITA), Manufacturing Investment Opportunities Programme (MIOP), and the Industrial Studies and Policies (ISP).




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