UAE-based AG Company and South Korea's Akbar Investment Company have agreed to study a dedicated Korean Industrial Zone in Abu Dhabi, expected to host more than 25 factories in a first phase in Al Ain with over $1bn of investment. It follows a run of signed manufacturing leases at KEZAD through 2026, including Samvardhana Motherson's automotive components hub and LIFEPharma's AED700m pharmaceutical platform.
A UAE investment firm and a South Korean partner have signed an agreement to study the establishment of a dedicated Korean Industrial Zone in Abu Dhabi, a scheme expected to accommodate more than 25 factories in its first phase in Al Ain and to draw investment of more than $1bn. AG Company and Akbar Investment Company signed the partnership alongside 15 memoranda of understanding with Korean manufacturers across a range of industrial sectors, and the visiting Korean delegation met the Abu Dhabi Investment Office and Khalifa Economic Zones Abu Dhabi during the trip.
It is a study agreement, not a construction commitment, and should be read as one. What makes it worth noting is the pipeline it lands on. Abu Dhabi has spent 2026 signing the more mundane kind of deal - land leases with named tenants, stated plot sizes and stated capital - and the accumulation is now substantial.
The largest of them is automotive. In May the Abu Dhabi Investment Office announced its support for a manufacturing hub being developed by Samvardhana Motherson International inside KEZAD, on a single plot of approximately 87,652 square metres to be built out in phases. The facility will make automotive components for Motherson's own global operations and for third-party original equipment manufacturers, is expected to create more than 1,000 jobs across technical, engineering, manufacturing and corporate roles, and is intended to serve as a regional manufacturing and export base. Construction is already under way. The investment office has said it is aiming to attract AED8bn of foreign direct investment across the full automotive value chain in the emirate.
Motherson is a useful test case for what Abu Dhabi is trying to do. It is a tier-one supplier rather than a carmaker, which means the plant's viability does not depend on vehicle assembly existing locally; it can ship components to assembly plants elsewhere. Attracting the supply chain before the assembler is the reverse of the usual sequence, and it is the only sequence available to a market of this size.
Pharmaceuticals produced the other large commitment. LIFEPharma signed a memorandum with AD Ports Group for an AED700m ($190m) manufacturing platform at KEZAD, split across vaccines at AED300m, oncology at AED200m and advanced injectables at AED200m. The company expects the platform to contribute around AED2bn to GDP over its life and to create more than 1,000 skilled jobs. Sterile injectable and vaccine capacity is a step up in build complexity from conventional pharmaceutical manufacturing, requiring validated cleanrooms and utilities that add materially to construction cost per square metre.
Beneath those two, the flow has been steady and smaller. In April, KEZAD secured five new industrial and logistics projects covering more than 84,000 square metres of land, with investment of AED147m ($40m) and about 500 jobs, among them a 10,000 square metre advanced manufacturing centre for ROX. In May the zone signed a land lease with Abu Dhabi Refreshment Company for a beverage production facility on roughly 32,500 square metres, with the company committing about AED300m to the development. At the Make it in the Emirates forum in the same month, KEZAD signed AED2.1bn of agreements and the investment office worked with 12 companies on industrial developments - eight new manufacturing hubs and four expansions of existing plants.
The pattern in all of this is consistent and worth stating plainly: these are mid-sized, land-anchored, supplier-tier plants, not mega-projects. Plot sizes run from 10,000 to 90,000 square metres and capital commitments from AED100m to AED700m. The product Abu Dhabi is selling is serviced industrial land with power, a customs perimeter, deepwater access at Khalifa Port and a long lease, packaged with investment office support. That combination is what a component maker or a formulator actually needs, and it is why the emirate can compete for this class of project against much larger manufacturing economies.
The Korean proposal fits the template rather than breaking it. Nationally branded industrial zones - a serviced estate marketed to manufacturers from one country, with shared services and a familiar commercial environment - are a well-worn instrument for lowering the entry cost for smaller firms that would not relocate alone. The timing follows the comprehensive economic partnership agreement between the UAE and South Korea, signed in Seoul in May 2024, which entered into force on 1 May 2026.
The distinction between what has been signed and what has been studied remains the one that matters for anyone pricing work off this pipeline. A land lease with a stated plot, a stated investment and construction under way is a contract. An agreement to examine the feasibility of a zone is a statement of intent, and 25 factories in Al Ain will only exist if individual Korean manufacturers each sign the former.