Business & Finance Cub - UAE: Abu Dhabi is set to launch an automotive industry zone to include verything from building vehicles to services and sales, it was reported on Tuesday.

The new zone is planned across an 11 sq km swathe of industrial land in Musaffah, officials said.

“The automobile business is a huge one,” Mohammed al Qamzi, the chief executive of the Higher Corporation for Specialised Economic Zones (ZonesCorp), said.

“The strategic decision [of the Abu Dhabi Government] is to have something related to the automotive industry,” he added.

The news follows reports earlier this month that the makers of Saudi Arabia’s first car have begun contacting businesses across the kingdom to enter into a partnership to begin production of the Ghazal 1 vehicle.

Engineers at King Saud University (KSU) built the SUV, which was designed specifically for the Gulf climate, over two years.

The university aims to produce 20,000 of the cars over the next three years at a cost of SR1.8 billion.

Infrastructure is scheduled to be in place by the third or fourth quarter of next year for part of the new Abu Dhabi automotive cluster, which will form phase 5 of Industrial City of Abu Dhabi (ICAD), Al Qamzi said.

ZonesCorp has already invested about AED4bn in the first three phases of ICAD.

Aldar Properties already has plans to develop MotorWorld, located in Shamkah near Abu Dhabi International Airport, to provide a one-stop shop for buyers from around the region.