New facilities boost Gulf Industry Fair
Manama, January 15, 2010
New facilities such as Salman Industrial City and opening of Khalifa Bin Salman Port were a major boost to this year's Gulf Industry Fair, which saw tremendous response from firms across the globe, said its organiser Hilal Conferences and Exhibitions.
A total of 84 exhibitors from more than 15 countries took part in the key industrial event, which closed on Thursday at the Bahrain International Exhibition and Convention Centre. The three-day event also included a Gulf Industry Forum organised on the opening day.
More than 75 per cent of exhibitors at the Gulf Industry Fair have already enquired about taking part in next year's event, the organisers said. The visitor numbers at the third edition of the fair were up by more than 12 per cent.
'The wisdom of the government in developing Salman Industrial City and the opening of the Khalifa Bin Salman Port was a major boost to this year's event,' said organiser Hilal Conferences and Exhibitions managing director Jubran Abdulrahman.
'These facilities have put Bahrain clearly on the map as the industrial hub of the region and that has stimulated interest both regionally and internationally in Gulf Industry Fair as the key meeting place for industrialists looking to do business across the Middle East,' he said.
'The stability and strength of the oil price has equally brought confidence back to the regional economy and we are now seeing a lot of major projects going ahead,' he remarked.
'We are seeing the first signs of the financial crisis easing up and that is one of the reasons we have had a record attendance at this year's event,' Abdulrahman observed.
'Clearly the regional economy is now moving in the right direction, particularly in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.'
'And a large number of exhibitors have already signed up for next year's exhibition because they see this event as the key to building business in the region as we come out of the slowdown,' Abdulrahman added.
The sectors covered at the exhibition included aluminium, machine tools, industrial equipment and manufacturing, automation, metal, energy, logistics, metrology and industrial cities and free zones.-TradeArabia News Service