Dr. Azzam Al Dakhil, CEO of Saudi Research and Marketing Group and Chairman of the Middle East Publishing Association (MEPA), announced that MEPA will represent WAN- IFRA in the Middle East in the coming years.
While addressing the WAN-IFRA Middle East Conference, currently taking place at the Millennium Hotel in Dubai, Dr Al Dakhil said “MEPA has a number of plans in the Middle East and happy to associate with WAN-IFRA in several ways!”
Dr Al Dakhil thanked Mr Rainer Mittelbach, CEO of WAN-IFRA, for the distinguished efforts and accepting MEPA as its Middle East representative; “We welcome and foster such interest and consider it a main driver to further develop the media business in the region.
“It is an honor for me to be here at this important event and I would like to extend a special thanks to Mr. Mohammad Abdullah (Executive Director of Media City), the Conference Chairman for his generous support for this event and Media Businesses in the Middle-East in general.”
He observed, “The publishing industry is currently going through major changes, and in some parts of the world is facing critical obstacles. So far the Middle-East fortunately has been affected the least by these changes, partly because the local economy in many countries is doing quite well, and partly because the transition to new media channel is still in its development phase.”
Surely, local investments in the media business and its infrastructure, of which Dubai’s Media City is a shining example, have also impacted the industry in a positive way.
“Over the last couple of years, we have started to witness a general influx of interest in the Middle-East media business – from major global media companies (such as Google, Yahoo, CNN and NewsCorp), from business and service providers as well as from media organizations like WAN-IFRA.”
This recent partnership between WAN and IFRA is a great step towards this kind of cooperation. In a modern publishing environment, especially in the Middle-East, editorial and commercial development often go hand in hand, and with the greater spectrum of WAN-IFRA services, the needs of local publishers are likely to be met more comprehensively.
“The WAN-IFRA Middle East conference agenda serves as a great example of editorial and commercial topics supporting each other. However to ensure that this kind of co-operation isn’t limited to an annual conference, the new WAN-IFRA needs to establish a strong local presence in the Middle-East with local activity through committees, business development initiatives, research projects, events and training,” he explained.
Dubai Media city based MEPA covers 15 countries in the Middle-East, from Yemen to Turkey, Egypt to Iran, has 33 members, and has local administration staff and contacts to all major publishers.
“In order to facilitate and expedite WAN-IFRA’s presence here, we suggest, and offer, to use the Middle East Publisher’s Association (MEPA) as the foundation for the WAN-IFRA Middle-East Regional office. By combining the local contact network and infrastructure of MEPA with the content, technology and business development resources of WAN-IFRA, everyone would benefit.
“This would also be a natural expansion following the WAN-IFRA merger. WAN-IFRA-MEPA may be a long name for the office, but it would remind us of the evolution, integration and globalization of our business in a proper manner!” he concluded.
