Sharjah Publishing City Free Zone (SPCFree Zone) has explored potential ways of strengthening cooperation between Sharjah and the Italian region of Lazio in the publishing sector with a delegation of Italian officials attached to Lazio Innova, representing the Lazio Region, the Italian Chamber of Commerce in Rome as well as representatives of Italian companies in the publishing sector.

This came during a virtual meeting organised by Lazio Innova recently to present Lazio Region’s programme at the forthcoming Expo 2020 Dubai, in which Salim Omar Salim, Director of SPCFree Zone, participated. The Italian team was represented by Quirino Briganti, Coordinator of Expo 2020 Dubai for Lazio Region; Laura Tassinari Zugni Tauro, Director of Internationalization, Cluster and Studies, Lazio Innova; and Beatrice Calabrese, Senior Trade Analyst, Italian Chamber of Commerce in Dubai, among others.

Salim Omar Salim introduced Sharjah to the Italian team as a cultural powerhouse that is also a global economic destination, nurturing an ecosystem that meets the demands and fulfils every need of businesses and investors.

The meeting also served as an opportunity for the Italian delegation to learn closely about SPC Free Zone’s facilities and offerings to Italian publishers, as well as its efforts to support the regional and global publishing industries. The meeting was significant in the way it guided both sides to explore ways to further intensify the close cultural exchange between institutions in Sharjah and Italy. 

Addressing the delegation, Salim Omar Salim offered a detailed overview of the region’s investment environment as well as the incentives SPCFree Zone has designed specifically for businesses in the sector to thrive. “Our key objective is to provide comprehensive and world-class publishing services and infrastructure to UAE and the region, which would also enable publishers from around the globe to expand their operations in the Middle East from Sharjah.”

Salim added: “SPCFZ offers publishers as well as SMES, startups and entrepreneurs a wide range of integrated services including streamlined processes, ease of doing business, flexible laws and regulations, 100 percent foreign ownership as well as low publishing costs and skilled manpower, all in one place. These are among the reasons that 73 new enterprises from 23 countries chose SPCFZ as their base in the region in 2020, despite the challenges resulting from the pandemic. ”

Sharing his market outlook, Salim stressed that effective partnerships were instrumental to the industry’s future development. “Over the past few years, SPCFree Zone has been making great strides in forging strategic partnerships with various cultural entities globally, participating in leading cultural events across the world to introduce international publishers and free zones to our world-class facilities and incentives, as well as to showcase its initiatives to support the publishing industry,” he further noted.

Salim concluded: “We are boosting efforts to attract Italian publishers to the local market, which is ripe with opportunities for them, given the large Italian community in the UAE and the larger region that they will be able to cater to from SPCFZ.”

During the meeting, the delegation learnt about the Sharjah International Book Fair and its awards, which include the Tarjman Award. They also discussed enhancing opportunities in various cultural, economic fields and new businesses in different sectors in Sharjah and the United Arab Emirates, as they explored ways to promote sustainable cultural exchange between institutions in the country and Italy.

The Sharjah Publishing City Free Zone represents a modern, integrated business community and an incubator environment of enterprises, companies, and institutions of various specializations, as it opens its doors to established and support growth of business sustainability by providing a wide choice of motivational packages and facilitating official transactions, in addition to shortening time, effort and resources. In this process it reaches to customers and markets in the region and the world, because of its geographical location that provides a vital network of transportation to ports and airports, allowing to access the market globally.