JEDDAH, 23 April 2005 — Saudi Building & Interiors Exhibition and Symposium ended here on Thursday night, with most of the 200 exhibitors reporting deals worth several million dollars that have been reached or are in the pipeline.
With the Kingdom’s real estate sector continuing to boom, the turnout of visitors was large. Aside from real estate developers and building contractors, the five-day event attracted a sizeable number of professionals, especially architects, designers and engineers, as well as top officials and executives in the public and private sectors, notably hospitals and schools.
Students interested in pursuing a career in the real estate sector and its related fields were seen visiting the stands and also taking part in the interactive symposium that was conducted alongside the show.
A host of experts and specialists provided free consultancy at various sessions to contractors and prospective builders or owners of properties in addition to giving presentations on various aspects of real estate development, as well as the related building and construction activities. “We had good interactive sessions with participants and some potential builders and contractors are expected to consult us for their future projects,” Abdullah Al-Rashid, a specialist in residential and commercial building projects, said.
Exhibits ranged from building materials, equipments and construction tools to air-conditioning and heating, electrical equipments, environmental technology, landscape and hardscape, safety and security systems, stones and marble and granite tiles, and water technology.
“I was thrilled to see so many best quality and wide ranging building and construction products from different countries under one roof,” Abdul Karim Al-Jelani of a Makkah-based trading company, said.
Among local exhibitors, the Al Hossain Wooden House attracted a large number of families for its range of wooden houses displayed in the northern corner of the hall. Many villa owners said they were interested in having such wooden houses within their spacious villa compounds,” Sultan Al-Hossain, general manager of the Riyadh-based company, said.
Aside from scores of national exhibitors, many more had come from different countries, including Turkey, which had the largest pavilion, Thailand, China, Iran, France, Cyprus Italy, the UAE, Lebanon and Malaysia.
“Switch off electricity and switch to solar energy” was the slogan of the Jeddah-based Al-Baroom Commercial Agencies, which introduced “Solar Prince” centralized solar hot water systems. Like this company, Al-Zamil Water Tanks also said the response from visitors was “overwhelming.”
Jeddah Mayor Adel Faqeeh opened the show, which recorded more than 10,000 registered visitors, said a spokesman for Al-Harithy Company for Exhibitions Ltd., which organized the event.