$25bn investment to IT over next five years for the Middle East

Aerospace in the Middle East will see an investment of $25 billion in IT infrastructure over the next five years, an industry expert says.
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Even amid current economic woes, and IATA’s forecasts for a global $2.5bn air transport loss investments are still being made.

"The driver for the investment is cost reduction," said Hani Al Assad, regional vice-president, Sales and Relationship Management, Middle East and Turkey, at SITA.

He added that the spending was also required to improve customer service, infrastructure and workforce efficiency.

"The region's IT infrastructure was lagging behind because of the long time-span for decision-making. The lack of privatisation was also a problem.

"But we are catching up now," Al Assad said.

Last year saw a 2.6 per cent increase in IT spend compared to the year before, the highest in the Asia-Pacific region.

Al Assad said that while the region continued to invest in aviation, governments were also looking at alternative forms of transport.

"Oman, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia are all studying rail networks and there is also investment into alternative infrastructure," Al Assad said.
 

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