The 7th edition of the Middle East International Motorshow recorded an unprecedented growth of 82 percent in the number of visitors over the previous edition, stated a press release.
“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,” said Dubai World Trade Center (DWTC) Director General, Mubarak Bin Fahad.
“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,” added Bin Fahad. “Motor vehicle sales in the first six months in the UAE itself have gone up by 17 percent over the same period in 2002 with the highest percentage change in the small and medium cars segment.” He noted that the collective growth in this segment for the entire GCC was a double-digit figure of 18 percent.
This edition of the Motorshow reflects this trend with a growth of 45 percent in the net space sold between 2001 and 2003 reaching a figure of 24,000 square meters this year. The number of manufacturers also grew by a significant 23 percent. — (menareport.com)
© 2003 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
