Media city planned for Beirut

Keach Hagey

A digital-investment company is looking to add Beirut to the Middle East’s growing list of media cities.

Kuv Capital, a growth consultant and early-stage investment firm based in the Lebanese capital, has launched a website and begun holding meetings to gather support for the proposed Beirut Media City, where software developers and others in the creative sector may be based.

The company is prepared to invest US$1 million (Dh3.6m) with the hopes of attracting between $10m and $20m to launch the project.

“There are a lot of things happening in Lebanon’s media community, which is very important but not really organised,” said Herve Cuviliez, the managing director of Kuv Capital.

“So we just launched the idea and said we shall try to create a place where you can find facilities, services and a community organised around it.”

Kuv Capital has set a deadline of September to decide whether Beirut Media City is feasible. If it goes ahead, Beirut’s media city will join a rapidly expanding list including those in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Ras al Khaimah, Amman, Cairo and maybe Doha.

But Mr Cuviliez warned against expectations of another Dubai Media City on the Mediterranean.

“We don’t want to do the TECOM model,” he said, referring to the Technology and Media Free Zone, which gathers together large media companies in Dubai.

“It’s a good model in Dubai, but I don’t think it would happen in Beirut for various reasons, including money.” Instead, Mr Cuviliez envisioned a more communal entity, designed to take advantage of Beirut’s cheaper labour and property prices.

“The competitive advantage of Lebanon is that it’s very cheap to create a company,” he said. “You can incorporate with $3,000. You can rent an office for $4,000 a month.”

But Beirut also has downsides for entrepreneurs that stretch beyond the often tense political situation, including frequent power cuts and poor broadband service.

Mr Cuviliez said he saw the media city as a way of pooling resources to share generators and internet service more affordably, while also providing a pool of talent that start-ups could use to strengthen their businesses.

He said Beirut Media City would be unique in its ability to cater for small start-up ventures.

“When you come to Qatar or Abu Dhabi or Dubai, you need to have a certain size of business to operate from there, because the costs are higher,” Mr Cuviliez said.

“If you are two guys with two computers who want to make an application for the iPhone, or a website, to get it off the ground in places like Amman or Beirut tomorrow is better, because everything is cheaper.”

Kuv Capital has already begun scouting for old warehouses and factory buildings that could be renovated to provide the 5,000 square metres Mr Cuviliez said would be required.

He said the media city would start with between 30 and 50 companies, but hoped other companies would spread out into adjacent buildings in the future.

Several banks and wealthy individuals have expressed interest in funding the project, Mr Cuviliez said.

He has not yet discussed the matter with the Lebanese government but said the tax-free status that was normally part of other media cities could be achieved by companies in Lebanon that register as offshore entities.

Mr Cuviliez said the Gulf’s large market would always be an essential part of the media business in the Middle East, but Beirut and the UAE could gain from each other’s media cities.

“I had someone e-mail me and say, ‘if you do that, there will be no Lebanese left in Dubai’,” he said, laughing. “But that’s not true and I know it.”

http://www.thenational.ae/article/20090502/BUSINESS/705029980/1005