By Megha Merani

March 29 (TRPN) - Abu Dhabi emirates' Khalifa Port Free Trade Zone (KPFTZ) has around six projects currently in planning or design stages within its master development, a senior executive said.

"We have signed 13 MOUs (memorandums of understanding) and about 50 percent of these are under construction and the rest are in planning or design stage," Mana Mohamed Saeed Al Mulla, CEO of the Khalifa Industrial Zone Abu Dhabi (KIZAD) which owns the trade zone, told Zawya Projects on Tuesday.

Al Mulla was speaking on the sidelines of a press conference during the Global Manufacturing and Industrialisation Summit in the United Arab Emirates' capital Abu Dhabi, where KIZAD's master developer Abu Dhabi Ports announced that KPFTZ's total area now stood at 100 square kilometres (sq km) to make it the biggest in the region.

The free trade zone's 16-sq-km Area A would house a new business park while its 84-sq-km Area B will have heavy, light and logistics industries as well as commercial complexes, big-box retail stores, mixed-use and residential developments and a town centre.

Captain Mohamed Juma Al Shamisi, CEO of Abu Dhabi Ports, said that Area A's primary infrastructure is complete while the secondary infrastructure would be developed in line with investor requirements.

He said both KPFTZ and Khalifa Port have been designed to accommodate future railway networks under the country's federal railway project.

"In our design and development of the free zone as well as Khalifa Port, we have the capacity for any train (network) as soon as it arrives. We have an exit or an opening that allows trains to pass through and we have railway stations and railway tracks in Khalifa City," he said.

ADP is also looking to meet the energy needs of heavy industries in KPFTZ, he said, adding that the master developer is in talks with the government to secure energy supplies, particularly gas, for heavy industries.

(Reporting by Megha Merani) ((megha.merani@thomsonreuters.com;))