23 September 2026
DSKZ International Investment LLC of Abu Dhabi and India based Sarveshwar Foods announced on 23 September 2026 that they have executed a Joint Venture Shareholders’ Agreement to build an integrated food manufacturing, processing, value addition and distribution platform in Abu Dhabi. The partnership starts with an investment of USD 50 million, which the parties put at approximately AED 183.65 million. That figure covers Phase 1 only. Both sides state plainly that it does not represent the total value of the joint venture’s longer term development programme, and that expansion will follow once Phase 1 is implemented. The initiative is aligned with the UAE campaign to localise industrial production, Make it in the Emirates.
What exactly was signed
The announcement is not a memorandum of understanding or a letter of intent. The parties executed a Joint Venture Shareholders’ Agreement, the document that sets out how a jointly owned company is governed, funded and run. In UAE practice this is the stage at which partners stop exploring and start incorporating: the shareholders’ agreement fixes the commercial architecture, and the licensing, land and regulatory steps follow from it.
Under the agreement the two sides pool different assets. DSKZ International Investment brings capital, regional relationships and market development capability. Sarveshwar Foods brings manufacturing and industry expertise from the food sector, including processing, sourcing and value added product development. The platform they intend to build spans food processing, manufacturing, product development, packaging, supply chain development and distribution, so the joint venture is designed as a single chain rather than a factory with a sales office attached.
Phase 1 and what the USD 50 million actually buys
The parties are unusually precise about the perimeter of the money. The USD 50 million is earmarked for the initial industrial and operational foundation of the joint venture in Abu Dhabi. According to the announcement, Phase 1 is expected to support manufacturing and processing capacity, production infrastructure, technology deployment, supply chain integration and the market development capability needed to make the platform commercially scalable.
What comes after Phase 1 is conditional, and the announcement says so. Subsequent expansion depends on the successful implementation of Phase 1, on applicable regulatory approvals, on market development and on the growth strategy the partners agree between themselves. Through that phased approach the partners intend to grow production capacity, the range of value added product categories and geographic reach, while keeping Abu Dhabi as the strategic investment, manufacturing and operational base of the platform.
It is worth being clear about what the announcement does not contain. There is no named industrial site or free zone, no split of shareholdings between the partners, no construction timeline, no production start date and no headcount or capacity figures. Anyone reading this as a fully scoped project is reading more into it than the parties have said.
Why the Make it in the Emirates framing matters
The joint venture is positioned against the UAE’s industrial policy rather than against the food trade. The partners link it to national objectives they list explicitly: strengthening domestic manufacturing, attracting international industrial expertise and investment, enhancing food security, developing resilient supply chains and raising the global competitiveness of products manufactured and value added inside the UAE.
The commercial logic follows from that framing. The partners describe the venture as a deliberate move beyond conventional food trading and commodity supply, where margin sits with whoever owns the goods in transit, towards local processing and product development, where margin sits with whoever transforms the raw material. Rice, pulses and similar commodities arriving in the Gulf as bulk cargo carry thin spreads. The same volumes processed, packaged and branded in Abu Dhabi carry a different economic profile and a different customs classification on the way out.
Export ambition is stated in the same terms. The partners intend to use UAE infrastructure, logistics connectivity and geography to build an export oriented platform serving the GCC, the wider Middle East, Africa, the Indian Subcontinent and other international markets. This is the standard Abu Dhabi industrial pitch, and it is the same argument behind the federal push documented in our note on Factory Forward UAE, the MoIAT platform for adopting AI and Industry 4.0.
AI and blockchain are named, not yet deployed
The partners say they intend to explore integrating artificial intelligence and blockchain across the value chain. On the AI side the stated use cases are demand forecasting, inventory optimisation, supply chain intelligence and operational efficiency. On the blockchain side the stated purpose is traceability, provenance and transparency from source through processing and distribution.
The verb in the announcement is explore, and that wording should be taken at face value. Traceability requirements in food exports are tightening across the markets the platform is aimed at, so the intent is commercially coherent rather than decorative. But no vendor, system or implementation date is named, and nothing in the announcement commits the venture to a particular technology stack.
Who the two partners are
DSKZ International Investment LLC describes itself as an Abu Dhabi based investment and strategic development company that builds international partnerships across technology, artificial intelligence, renewable energy, advanced manufacturing, food and agriculture, infrastructure and real world asset innovation. Its stated model is to identify established international technologies and industrial capabilities, bring them into Abu Dhabi, localise them and scale them across regional and international markets. Dr. Khalifa Hamad Al Aleeli, Group CEO and President of DSKZ Group, framed Phase 1 as the foundation for a broader value added food manufacturing platform and described the strategy as knowledge and supply chain transfer rather than capital investment alone.
Sarveshwar Foods is an established food sector business with expertise across food processing, manufacturing, sourcing and value added product development. Harbans Lal, Director of Sarveshwar Foods, called the agreement a milestone in the company’s international growth strategy and said the Phase 1 investment provides the foundation for building manufacturing and value addition capability in Abu Dhabi.
What this means for companies working in the UAE
A single joint venture does not change any rule. What it does is confirm where the incentives currently point, and that is worth reading carefully if your business touches food, logistics or industrial supply chains in the Emirates.
- Manufacturing and value addition inside the UAE, not pure trading, is the activity the national industrial agenda is built around, and it is the activity foreign industrial groups are structuring around.
- An integrated model covering processing, packaging, logistics and distribution needs a licence perimeter that matches it. Activity codes chosen for trading rarely cover production, and adding them later is slower than getting them right at incorporation.
- Abu Dhabi is being used as the operating base for export to the GCC, Africa and the Indian Subcontinent, which makes the mainland versus free zone decision a customs and market access question rather than a cost question.
- Industrial joint ventures move in phases. Committed capital, governance and exit terms belong in the shareholders’ agreement before the first licence application, not after it.
- New production platforms pull in suppliers, packaging, cold chain, transport and inspection services. Those contracts are usually awarded locally.
How Atlant Capital can help
We work with companies that are moving production or distribution into the Emirates rather than simply opening a trading desk. That starts with the licence perimeter: choosing an emirate and a jurisdiction, matching activity codes to what the business will actually do, and structuring a joint venture so the shareholders’ agreement and the corporate documents say the same thing. Our company setup service covers incorporation in mainland and free zone jurisdictions, and our bank account opening service covers the corporate banking that an industrial venture needs before it can pay suppliers.
If you are at the stage of comparing jurisdictions, our guide to company formation in the UAE sets out the structures, costs and documents involved. For a project specific answer, talk to us and we will work through the perimeter with you.
The takeaway
Two partners with complementary capabilities have committed USD 50 million to a first phase and have been explicit that it is a first phase. The measurable part is the signed shareholders’ agreement and the Phase 1 budget of USD 50 million, or approximately AED 183.65 million. Everything beyond that, including capacity, site, timeline and total programme value, is conditional on how Phase 1 goes. That is a more honest structure than a headline number covering a decade, and it is how industrial investment in Abu Dhabi is increasingly being announced.
Source: Zawya.
FAQ
How much are DSKZ International Investment and Sarveshwar Foods investing in Abu Dhabi?
The joint venture starts with USD 50 million, which the partners state as approximately AED 183.65 million. That amount is allocated to Phase 1 only. The partners say explicitly that it does not represent the total value of the joint venture’s longer term development programme, and that further expansion depends on Phase 1 being implemented successfully.
What will the joint venture actually produce in Abu Dhabi?
The partners describe an integrated platform covering food processing, manufacturing, product development, packaging, supply chain development and distribution. The announcement made on 23 September 2026 does not name specific product categories, a production site, a capacity figure or a start date. It states that Phase 1 will fund manufacturing and processing capacity, production infrastructure, technology deployment and supply chain integration.
Which markets will the Abu Dhabi platform serve?
The partners intend to build an export oriented platform serving the GCC, the wider Middle East, Africa, the Indian Subcontinent and other international markets, with Abu Dhabi kept as the strategic investment, manufacturing and operational base. Expansion of capacity, product categories and geographic reach is planned in phases rather than at once.
What is Make it in the Emirates and how does this joint venture fit it?
Make it in the Emirates is the UAE campaign to localise industrial production and attract manufacturing investment into the country. The partners align their venture with it and list the national objectives it supports: strengthening domestic manufacturing, attracting international industrial expertise and investment, improving food security, building resilient supply chains and raising the competitiveness of products made and value added inside the UAE.
