Joint ventures with other countries to develop projects in the Dubai Outsource Zone DOZ are on the pipeline, Ismail Al Naqi, Executive Director of DOZ, said. DOZ is seeking at least five per cent of the global outsourcing market by 2010, when its fourth and last phase is expected to be completed. Outsourcing helps many companies keep down costs by handing over some tasks to outside firms. Gartner, a market research firm, estimates the size of the global business process outsourcing market by 2007 at USD 173 billion Dh 635 billion, of which USD 24.23 billion Dh 88.9 billion would be outsourced to offshore contractors.

Although India absorbs around 80 per cent of all outsourcing activities, DOZ is not worried, Al Naqi said. We are not competing with India. The market place is so big, there is no need for that. We are actually a destination that complements India. A complementary role could be, for example, a DOZ based doctor analyzing an Xray report scanned and emailed of a patient in India, he said.

Al Naqi added that DOZ also wants to attract skilled executives to carry out high end processes like risk management for international clients, instead of the usual data entry or call centre professionals that are widely available in India. Dubai is a cosmopolitan, multilingual city that offers a high standard of living.

And, unlike India, we dont have the problem of high unemployment, he said. DOZ expects to create 10,000 jobs by year end. It also pitches as a Disaster Recovery Centre DRC, especially for banks.

Hesham Amiri, director of sales at DOZ, said, Data is precious in the financial service sector and companies need to ensure it is not exposed to viruses, hacking and natural disasters. In the case where danger has caused down time in an entire regions information technology system, data can still be retrieved from a safe location , like Dubai allowing for business continuity.

DOZ was launched in 2004 as the worlds first free zone dedicated to the outsourcing industry. Al Naqi said DOZ is currently the only outsourcing custodian with a physical presence.

So far, 120 companies from sectors like banking, insurance, healthcare and human resources have registered with DOZ, with around 70 firms in operation. The free zone , there is no tax in DOZ, is coming up in stages to prepare for a total of 200 firms by 2010.

The project started with a Dh2.5billion investment by the Dubai government and will eventually occupy 33 million square feet of land.

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