Issue 3/2005
05/02/05
Middle East Elevator and Escalator Show
MEEES – Dubai, March 14th to 17th, 2005
Dubai – Arabia – thousand and one night: these pictures come to mind if one thinks of the place. Unheard things happen without any doubt presently in Dubai: investment pours into the place with side effect for the whole Middle East. Sky scrapers sprout off the soil quite similar to the construction boom in Shanghai; motorways with eight lanes plough the dry desert while left and right of it new construction lots have already been allocated for start up. The apartments in the new towers viewing the blue-green sea are sold out before braking soil, identical with the emission of new shares on the Dubai stock exchange being over drafted ten to twenty times.
Category: Issue 3/2005
Posted by: Editor
This is an Eldorado for construction companies and their suppliers, like for lift companies one is tempted to guess. The second boom after the one of the years seventies/eighties has got however a much more international background than the first one: the professionals in the trade are no more exclusively Europeans and Americans, they come from the region, the majority of them from the Indian subcontinent. German construction companies are not present at all, instead Asia is over represented. Where Germans in the years of the first oil boom governed the vertical transport, Japan, Korea and China have taken over now.
Middle East Elevator and Escalator Show (MEEES) has to be looked at under this aspect as well, namely “East meets West“ in Dubai. The event took place for the third time in hall1 of the Dubai Exhibition Centre. The “exhibition“ lacked in comparison to the event two years ago exhibitors, almost all multinational lift companies, having been the pathfinders for the exhibition, were not present. The number of visitors is guessed to be 800–1000 persons, the exhibitors might have counted with that but certainly hoped for more. Visitors form the neighbourhood were also quite limited.
Dubai and the whole of UAE are a market for complete lifts, components are not yet needed due to the none-existence of production facilities or medium sized engineering companies. Just because of this the future of MEEES is to be questioned for 2007, in case the component manufacturers having been present this time shall stay away from the next exhibition.
Unlike the interlift the targeted groups of the MEEES are the architects, consultants and the construction companies. The multinational lift companies are therefore required as exhibitors respectively such lift companies exporting already now to the region or having those having the intention to do so in future.
To summarise: The spot is well covered already now, the need is increasing offering the newcomer the chance to participate. Restrictions by law are not existing, beside EN81, JAS and ANSI are accepted standards. The region might be an escape route form the stagnation in Europe for some of the bigger German medium sized companies.
Stephan Kretzschmar
3/2005
