Six years after its launch, the “media free zone” Dubai Media City is showing clear signs of further expansion outside its borders. Dubai Media City Executive Director of Media, Tecom Investments, Dr Amina al-Rostaman, told the Al-Sharq al-Awsat, how the media city could become international.

Dubai Media City (DMC) is a tax-free zone in Dubai for foreign-operated media companies that offers free movements of capital, low operating costs, and more investment incentives. It currently includes 1,200 specialised regional and international companies, across all media sectors, but mostly broadcasting and publishing.

Since its creation, the DMC has created a written collection of general guidelines meant for all media institutions in the free zone. In the event of a dispute, a neutral judging panel considers these guidelines and this has proved successful thus far in maintaining working cooperation between the companies.

To promote good cooperation, the DMC advocates responsible freedom, without having a censorship apparatus. All members of the free zone agree tacitly to this code of ethics.

After its success, the media city could export itself.

“Tecom Investments seeks to transfer its expertise to different parts of the world using cooperative agreements through which it will establish and run models of communities, using a system similar to DMC’s, via its global arm Tecom International,” said al-Rostaman. There are projects currently for expansion in India and Malta.

As far as publishing goes, the DMC serves as a market centre for over 120 publishing houses that issue some 350 prints. While this may seem like too much for the Dubai market, many companies sometimes use Dubai as a simple pit-stop on the way to the East or West Africa, and also to Europe.