Emtelle to open £42M Facility in Abu Dhabi

Michael Edgar

09 March 2023, 09.58am

Scottish telecoms group Emtelle signed an agreement to build one of the world largest factories to manufacture fibre optic ducting and pre-connectorised solutions in Abu Dhabi.

The facility will be created following a £42 million investment from the Hawick-headquartered Emtelle under a build-to-suit agreement with Khalifa Economic Zones Abu Dhabi (KEZDA). This investment is a statement project from Emtelle as they look to expand their worldwide footprint in the Fiber Optic industry.

“(The agreement) is a huge statement of intent by Emtelle as we will have the manufacturing space needed to ramp up our capacity,” said Tony Rodgers, CEO of Emtelle Group. “This will significantly shorten supply chains and guarantee both existing and new customers security of supply. This will allow countries across the Middle East and Asia Pacific the ability to significantly enhance their fibre networks at rapid speed,” he said.

According to Emtelle, the facility will export 95% of its manufactured products globally to markets, leveraging the end-to-end infrastructure from KEZAD.

The facility will operate from state of the art machines to manufacture microconducting, bundledducting and pre-connectorised solutions to feed the booming Fibre-to-the-x (FTTX) and Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) sectors.

Fibre optic connections are used for long distance, high performing connections for telecommunications services like internet, television and telephones. Infrastructure built with optical fibres are up to ten times faster than standard cables, and carry more data than copper cables of the same diameter.

This is leading to the rapid growth of the fibre optic industry, which is currently seeing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.3% according to a report.

“Emtelle’s establishment of their central global hub in Abu Dhabi speaks volumes of KEZAD’s ability to connect businesses to the world,” said Mohamed Al Khadar Al Ahmed, CEO Khalifa Economic Zones.

”Today, we are proud to be at the beginning of an era where digital connectivity of the Middle East and the Asia Pacific region will be made in KEZAD,” he said.