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Abu Dhabi: Investment by Emirates Steel Industries (ESI) will reach $5 billion to $6 billion by 2012, a senior official said on Wednesday.
The company has already completed about 85 per cent of its first project at the Industrial City of Abu Dhabi (ICAD-1) producing 715,041 tonnes in 2007 and targeting more than 1.45 million tonnes in 2008, at a cost of $1 billion, and is copying the same project fat similar cost, a contract that was signed by Shaikh Hamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Chairman of the Court of the Abu Dhabi Crown Prince, chairman of the Higher Corporation for Specialised Industrial Zones (Zonescorp) in Feb-ruary.
"The biggest problem that we face is finding the necessary staff, as we went through a very painful process touring the world to get our workforce which is standing now at 670 people, and will reach to 1,070 soon," Husain Al Nowais, ESI's chairman said yesterday.
To overcome this shortage, the company has adopted two programmes for the short and long term to qualify UAE nationals as industry experts and technicians.
"We are accomplishing this in coordination with the Petroleum Institute on one hand in the field of metals, and with the Abu Dhabi Vocational Institute in case of technicians on the other," Al Nowais said.
The company has succeeded in dealing with international raw material suppliers.
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