Middle East: “China Strengthens AAM Business Links with MidEast as Both Regions Embrace Low-Altitude Economy”

The phrase “Low-Alti­tude Econ­o­my” is becom­ing a buzz­word in the Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty (AAM) sec­tor, par­tic­u­lar­ly if you live in Chi­na or the Mid­dle East. 

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the West remains some way behind what some describe as “the next glob­al eco­nom­ic tour de force” after the trends of com­put­ers, mobile phones, online shops and PC Games, which have all raked in quad-tril­lions of dol­lars. For now the world is on the cusp of the lat­est huge mon­ey-spin­ner, the Low Alti­tude Econ­o­my or LAE.

news.cgtn.com is fea­tur­ing a series from Chi­na Media Group/Middle East Sta­tion, offer­ing an analy­sis of impor­tant Mid­dle East issues includ­ing pol­i­tics, eco­nom­ics and cul­ture. The media out­let recent­ly pub­lished its first arti­cle in a series of obser­va­tions on the devel­op­ment of the low-alti­tude econ­o­my in the Gulf region, high­light­ing the grow­ing coop­er­a­tion between Chi­nese com­pa­nies and MidEast part­ners.

The fea­ture begins, “The jour­ney from Dubai Inter­na­tion­al Air­port to the icon­ic Palm Jumeirah usu­al­ly takes 40 min­utes by car. By 2026, this 40-kilo­me­tre trip is expect­ed to be reduced to just 10 min­utes, thanks to a new mode of trans­porta­tion straight out of a sci-fi movie: air taxis. Pas­sen­gers will be able to book this ser­vice online and trav­el to des­ti­na­tions at alti­tudes of 500 to 1,000 metres.”

It goes on, “Once a futur­is­tic con­cept in nov­els and movies, fly­ing over city sky­lines in low-alti­tude air­craft is becom­ing a real­i­ty in the Gulf coun­tries. As these nations devel­op their low-alti­tude economies, Chi­nese enter­pris­es are seiz­ing the oppor­tu­ni­ty, becom­ing active par­tic­i­pants in dri­ving local indus­tri­al growth.”

Mul­ti Lev­el Group, EHang and ADIO seal strate­gic col­lab­o­ra­tion to dri­ve eVTOL devel­op­ment in the UAE (April ’24)

The coop­er­a­tion between the two is fas­ci­nat­ing to watch. Instead of approach­ing coun­tries like Amer­i­ca for assis­tance, the Mid­dle East is instead embrac­ing Chi­na for work­ers to help con­struct NEOM and oth­er fan­tas­ti­cal build­ing projects, in par­tic­u­lar, high­ly skilled engi­neers. The U.S is no longer the auto­mat­ic choice and instead is being uncer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly shelved.

In recent years, Gulf coun­tries have intro­duced nation­al devel­op­ment strate­gies such as Sau­di Ara­bi­a’s “Vision 2030,” the UAE’s “We the UAE 2031,” and Qatar’s “Nation­al Vision 2030.” The aim is to trans­form their economies from ener­gy depen­den­cy to diver­si­fi­ca­tion, focus­ing on tech­no­log­i­cal inno­va­tion, smart city devel­op­ment and sus­tain­able growth. Low-alti­tude aero­space tech­nolo­gies, such as eVTOL air­craft and drones, align well with the sus­tain­able mar­ket desires of the Mid­dle East.

The UAE is lead­ing the region in the low-alti­tude sec­tor. Its cap­i­tal city launched the “Dubai Hori­zon” project in 2022. This ini­tia­tive focus­es on plan­ning low-alti­tude flight routes and drone land­ing points, with the first phase com­plet­ed in 2023. The city is aim­ing to intro­duce air taxi ser­vices by 2026.

Sau­di Ara­bia is also active­ly engag­ing in this sec­tor. It has com­mit­ted USD100 bil­lion in invest­ments by 2030 to include the low-alti­tude sec­tor. The coun­try is inte­grat­ing air taxis into its high­ly ambi­tious NEOM project, hav­ing ini­tial­ly ordered 15 eVTOLs from the Ger­man com­pa­ny, Volo­copter, while invest­ing USD175 mil­lion for fur­ther strate­gic col­lab­o­ra­tion.

EHang’s Long Dis­tance eVTOL VT-30 on Dis­play at Abu Dhabi’s DRIFTx Event (April ’24)

Mean­while, Qatar’s Min­istry of Trans­port recent­ly announced plans to tri­al elec­tric air taxis by ear­ly 2025 and has begun apply­ing for test flight per­mits with domes­tic agen­cies.

The fea­ture points out, “The inter­nal dri­ve for eco­nom­ic trans­for­ma­tion, nation­al pol­i­cy direc­tion, the demand of a grow­ing mar­ket, and strong eco­nom­ic pow­er are key fac­tors attract­ing low-alti­tude econ­o­my enter­pris­es to the Gulf region.”

He Tianx­ing, VP of Chi­na’s lead­ing eVTOL man­u­fac­tur­er EHang, told CGTN that the Gulf region boasts a high lev­el of eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment; has a favourable invest­ment envi­ron­ment; and a strong foun­da­tion for adopt­ing and devel­op­ing high-tech inno­va­tions.

He remarked, ”The region has a robust mar­ket demand and indus­tri­al desire for advanced air trans­porta­tion that is safe, effi­cient, con­ve­nient and envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly, mak­ing it an ide­al area for cre­at­ing and devel­op­ing new appli­ca­tion sce­nar­ios.”

For exam­ple, the Gulf region, with its vast tracts of lands and rel­a­tive­ly low pop­u­la­tion den­si­ty, fea­tur­ing only scat­tered urban and rur­al areas along­side exten­sive desert zones, cou­pled with harsh cli­mate con­di­tions, is an ide­al envi­ron­ment for low-alti­tude craft like drones.

In oil and gas pipeline inspec­tions, drones are resilient to the Gulf’s hot weath­er and can oper­ate in a safe and sta­ble way in remote deserts. Addi­tion­al­ly, man­u­fac­tur­ing com­pa­nies can offer cus­tomised ser­vices based on client needs. Drones equipped with nav­i­ga­tion, posi­tion­ing, and cam­era func­tions sig­nif­i­cant­ly enhance inspec­tion effi­cien­cy while main­tain­ing rel­a­tive­ly low oper­a­tional costs.

Sev­er­al Chi­nese tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies have already entered the Mid­dle East mar­ket includ­ing EHang, Shang­hai Fengfei, XPeng Huit­ian, and Yufeng Future. Their prod­ucts are applied across a num­ber of sec­tors such as air trans­porta­tion, logis­tics, fire­fight­ing, emer­gency res­cue and pipeline inspec­tions.

Aut­oFlight’s Pros­per­i­ty eVTOL to Launch Ser­vices in UAE and Sau­di Ara­bia

Not for­get­ting China’s oth­er lead­ing eVTOL com­pa­ny, Aut­oFlight, who is enter­ing the MidEast by launch­ing ser­vices in the UAE and Sau­di Ara­bia with­in the next two years.

The fea­ture con­tin­ues, “Lever­ag­ing domes­tic indus­tri­al chain advan­tages and inno­v­a­tive tech­nolo­gies, Chi­nese com­pa­nies are also explor­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion mod­els bet­ter suit­ed to the region­al mar­ket. Over­seas com­pa­nies pro­vide com­plete sys­tems and tech­ni­cal sup­port based on local client needs, while local firms han­dle low-alti­tude oper­a­tions, includ­ing route appli­ca­tions, approvals, and pilot man­age­ment.”

This col­lab­o­ra­tive mod­el, accord­ing to one busi­ness insid­er, not only cre­ates more job oppor­tu­ni­ties, but also helps Chi­nese com­pa­nies expand their local client base. He com­ment­ed, ”Such coop­er­a­tion effec­tive­ly empow­ers both par­ties, achiev­ing a win-win out­come.”

Already, mul­ti­ple Chi­nese firms have estab­lished part­ner­ships with local com­pa­nies in the Mid­dle East. For exam­ple, three months ago, EHang signed a coop­er­a­tion agree­ment with the Mul­ti-Lev­el Group and the Abu Dhabi Invest­ment Office. The AAV com­pa­ny plans “to set up a region­al HQ in Abu Dhabi and col­lab­o­rate with local part­ners on pro­duc­tion, flight oper­a­tions, R&D, train­ing, main­te­nance and over­hauls,” accord­ing to He Tianx­ing.

Sev­er­al enti­ties from the UAE and Sau­di Ara­bia have signed pro­cure­ment con­tracts with Chi­nese firms for eVTOL air­craft, along­side fur­ther coop­er­a­tion in areas such as air­craft bat­tery charg­ing and ver­ti­port infra­struc­ture.

Mean­while, in March, Chi­na’s Shi­di Tech­nol­o­gy secured USD20 mil­lion in Series A fund­ing from inter­na­tion­al investors to advance its air taxi devel­op­ment in the Mid­dle East. While the fol­low­ing month, Shen­zhen Urban Trans­porta­tion Plan­ning and Design Research Cen­tre revealed to investors that it will soon launch LAE oper­a­tions in the Mid­dle East. This includes design­ing low-alti­tude econ­o­my solu­tions and devel­op­ing relat­ed plat­forms.

EHang’s EH216‑L Logis­tics Drone on Dis­play at DRIFTx (April ’24)

So, be care­ful Amer­i­ca. Don’t get left behind. Agreed, both Joby and Archer Avi­a­tion have secured a strong foothold in the Mid­dle East along­side UK-based Sky­ports Infra­struc­ture, but the Chi­nese are increas­ing­ly on the busi­ness warpath and look­ing to dom­i­nate the LAE mar­ket.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.ehang.com

https://www.autoflight.com

(News Source: news.cgtn.com)

(Top image: In May, board mem­bers of the Mul­ti-Lev­el Group expe­ri­enced the first manned flight test of a Chi­nese-devel­oped eVTOL air­craft in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Cred­it: EHang) 

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