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Dubai's role as a leading commercial centre in the region and the Dubai
World Trade Centre's expertise in organizing and hosting exhibitions has
once again ensured that the 7th Middle East International Motorshow has recorded excellent growth with as many as 75,167 visitors checking out
the vehicles on display during the five-day show that concluded today.
"We have received a fantastic visitor turnout which ascertains the city's
long established role as the premier regional hub, servicing the rest of the
region and DWTC's ability to create and deliver events that constantly generate higher levels of business activity, expand and provide impressive
growth for our exhibitors," said DWTC Director General, Mubarak bin
Fahad.
The 7th edition of the Motorshow recorded an unprecedented growth of
82% in the number of visitors over the previous edition.
"Automobile sales in the region have been buoyant largely due to the
collective result of the last two years of higher oil revenues of the regional
economies including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar among others and this robust outlook has proved to be a major factor in
our success in attracting more automobile manufacturers, customisers and tuners to participate in the show as well as more buyers," Mr. bin
Fahad stressed.
Releasing recent figures collated by Auto Strategies International Inc., who
participated at the Motorshow, Mr. bin Fahad said, the outlook for 2004 and
beyond looks bright. "There are currently almost 3.5 million passenger vehicles in use in the GCC which has a population of 31.5 million and there
is a great potential for new vehicle sales in these countries."
Motor vehicle sales in the first six months in the UAE itself have gone up
by 17% over the same period in 2002 with the highest percentage change in the small and medium cars segment. Announcing the January to June
sales figures for small, medium, large, luxury and sports car segments for
2003 Mr. bin Fahad said, "As many as 27,888 new vehicles have been sold in the first six months in the UAE, 62,041 in Saudi Arabia (up by 2%), 5,353
in Qatar (up by 38%), 5,303 in Bahrain (up by 15%), 18,293 in Kuwait (up by
23%) and 11,277 in Oman (up by 29%)."
He noted that the collective growth in this segment for the entire GCC was
a healthy double-digit figure of 18%.
"We see a very strong potential for the Motorshow to develop in the future
and we will continue to improve on the show and add new facets to attract
more exhibitors and visitors," Mr. bin Fahad remarked.
This edition of the Motorshow, which has grown phenomenally since the
last edition, reflects this trend with a growth of 45% in the net space sold
between 2001 and 2003 reaching a figure of 24,000 square metres this year. The number of manufacturers also grew by a significant 23%. |
