Qatar International Cables Company (QICC), a Nexans company and a leader in the worldwide cable industry, aims to capture 20 to 30 per cent of the Qatari market, according to a top company official.

With this new plant, QICC plans to serve key market segments like energy, oil and gas, transport, telecom, shipbuilding, automotive, electronics, aeronautics and other sectors like material handling and automation, said Cyprien Federspiel, general manager of Nexans QICC.

He was speaking to the mediapersons during their visit to Nexan's first cable plant in the Gulf located at Messaieed Industrial City, around 40 km from Doha.

Federspiel said the production capability of the plant, built on a 70,000 sq m plot, was around 25,000 metric tons per year.

“The Factory is specialized in the production of low, medium and high copper cables, and the demand for this kind of products has increased in Qatar significantly over the past years. According to the Customs and Ports General Authority in Qatar, the total value of different cable imports reached around QR2 billion ($549.2 million) in 2008.

'With Nexans technologies and QICC local presence, clients all over the region will enjoy integrated added value services with a complete support of the cable plant in Mesaieed. All kinds and sizes of projects in the region will benefit of the complete services QICC offers customized to the local necessities,' noted Federspiel.

'This makes QICC a one-stop-shop for all developers at both regional and national level,' he explained.

'While supplying the region with high end products customized to fit in with the real needs of small, medium and big projects, quality in QICC is not a matter of question,” he added.

The opening of this flagship plant in Qatar represents a key strategic step that enables Nexans to address the specific needs of the buoyant and growing market in the Gulf countries.

It also adds high-quality, high-volume local manufacturing capability to the effective engineering, sales and customer support services already established in this area. QICC will not only focus on Qatar market, but will target Gulf Coast Countries (GCC) and Yemen markets, said Federspiel.

QICC was established in June 2008 as a joint venture company between Nexans and Qatari Partners, and is fully managed by Nexans.-TradeArabia News Service