The owner handed me a hairnet before he said hello. We were standing at the door of a small packaging plant in Al Ghail, Ras Al Khaimah, and the machines behind him were louder than his voice. A handful of lines, a couple of dozen staff, boxes going out to food producers across the UAE.
"Everyone talks about trading," he told me over the noise. "Nobody told me making things here was this possible."
I think about that visit every time a founder asks me whether the UAE is a place to manufacture. In 2026 the answer is yes, and the numbers are bigger than most SME owners realise.
Operation 300bn is halfway through its decade
The UAE's industrial strategy, launched in 2021, set out to lift the industrial sector's contribution to GDP from AED 133 billion to AED 300 billion by 2031. The Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology said the contribution had passed AED 205 billion by the end of 2023, and in June 2026 Khaleej Times reported that the sector's GDP contribution had risen by nearly 70 percent since 2021, with industrial exports above AED 262 billion in 2025.
Think about what that means for you. A national target with five years left will keep opening doors for anyone who makes things locally.
The 2026 Make it in the Emirates forum
The fifth edition of Make it in the Emirates ran from 4 to 7 May 2026 at ADNEC in Abu Dhabi. It was the largest yet: 1,245 exhibitors across 12 sectors, 146,329 visitors and more than 200 agreements signed. SMEs made up around 61 percent of exhibitors, Gulf News reported. The headline was AED 180 billion in cumulative procurement offtakes over the next decade, tied to a plan to localise more than 5,000 products the country currently imports.
The buyers are telling manufacturers, in public, what they want to purchase. For a small factory, one long-term supply contract can be the difference between surviving and scaling.
RAKEZ alone signed around AED 1.59 billion in agreements at the forum, and KEZAD reported AED 2.1 billion. The sixth edition is set for 3 to 6 May 2027.
In-Country Value: the door for small suppliers
The National In-Country Value programme is the mechanism that turns national ambition into purchase orders. Government bodies and major national companies score their suppliers on how much of their spending stays in the UAE: local manufacturing, local staff, local investment. Spending directed into the economy through the programme reached AED 347 billion by the end of 2024, the ministry said in July 2025.
An SME obtains an ICV certificate through one of the authorised certifying bodies, based on its audited financial statements. SMEs registered under the Ministry of Economy's National Programme pay a reduced certification fee. More than 7,000 ICV-certified SMEs were registered with the ministry by mid-2025.
My advice: get the certificate before you chase the tender. Buyers check it first.
Where a small factory fits
Not every manufacturer needs 20,000 square metres. In Ras Al Khaimah, RAKEZ runs Al Hamra Industrial Zone for light industry and logistics and Al Ghail for larger plants, with ready-built warehouses. In Abu Dhabi, KEZAD added 146,000 square metres of warehouse space in 2025, with 67 percent of its leased land serving industrial and manufacturing activity.
Choose by your inputs and your customers, not by brand. A building materials maker wants to be near quarries and construction sites. Ras Al Khaimah has both.
Niches I would look at first
In my experience, these niches have the shortest path to a first order in 2026:
- Packaging: corrugated boxes, flexible film and food-grade containers, feeding a UAE packaging market that researchers put at around USD 10 billion in 2025
- Food processing: spices, snacks, dates, bakery and sauces
- Building materials: tiles, pavers, aluminium profiles, and insulation
- Furniture and joinery for the hotel and housing pipeline
- Cosmetics and personal care, including halal and natural lines
- Spare parts and components for air conditioning, vehicles and machinery
- 3D printing and small-batch precision parts
Several of these sit inside the sectors the localisation drive names: food, healthcare, construction and industrial inputs.
Financing is available
Emirates Development Bank said in April 2026 that it aims to approve up to AED 9 billion in funding this year. It provided AED 3.8 billion to SMEs in 2025. An AED 1 billion National Industrial Resilience Fund was launched at the 2026 forum, and an AED 350 million supply chain finance programme now advances up to 95 percent of approved government invoices within 24 hours. Cash flow closes more small factories than competition does.
One honest caution
Manufacturing is slower than trading. Equipment, approvals, product certification and the first ICV audit take months, and capital is tied up long before the first invoice is paid. Plan for a longer runway than a trading company and keep the first product range narrow.
What this means for you
The UAE has told the world what it wants made here, who will buy it and how it will be financed. If you have a product, a process or even just factory experience, 2026 is the year to look seriously at a light-industrial unit in the northern emirates.
My next step for you: pick one product from the list above, find three UAE buyers who currently import it, and ask them what certification they need from a local supplier. That conversation is your business plan.
What would you make here? Tell me in the comments. Next week I will walk through how an SME registers for an ICV certificate.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or investment advice.
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