Biggest Dubai free zone, DMCC, partners with Chinese firms

Dubai Multi Commodities Center (DMCC), the biggest industry free zone in the emirate, said in an emailed statement on Sunday that the development of a 7,500-square-meter DMCC Coffee Center, close to Jebel Ali Port harbor, is underway and will be marked by a ground-breaking ceremony attended by China's Mega Capital Halal (MCH) and Yunnan State Farms Group.

The DMCC Coffee Center, a temperature-controlled facility, "will offer world-class infrastructure and services for storage, processing, warehousing and delivery of coffee to precise specifications," said DMCC.

Close-up of coffee beans

The center is projected to handle up to 20,000 tonnes of green coffee bean annually, with an estimated trade value of up to 100 million US dollars annually. The center will be completed by 2018, said the free zone.

DMCC, home of over 14,000 registered companies, quoted a report recently released by the International Coffee Organization which said that global exports in coffee year 2016/17 increased by 4.8 percent to 122.45 million bags compared to 116.89 million bags in the previous year.

The UAE is located at the center of a region which now accounts for eight percent of the trade, or 6.5 billion US dollars of the 85 billion US dollars global consumer spending on coffee.

(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)