JEDDAH, 14 March 2008 — A British Expertise team said on Wednesday night that it was seeking more involvement in infrastructure projects across Saudi Arabia.

“King Abdullah Economic City in Rabigh, north of Jeddah, and five other new cities that have been planned across the Kingdom are among the promising areas for increasing our involvement,” Phil Dowrick, director of British Expertise for Middle East, Africa and marketing, and leader of a British Expertise trade association delegation, told Arab News on the sidelines of a reception hosted in its honor at the British Consulate General.

British architects, designers, planners and consultants are already well involved in projects here. “However, our effort is to seek more involvement,” he said. Ten companies that constitute the delegation are all consultants in infrastructure activities, which range from architecture to security, electricity and a host of other related areas.

The delegation had a meeting with Emaar that is involved in developing King Abdullah Economic City. It had meetings with Saudi Basic Industries Corporation and Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority in Riyadh, and Saudi Aramco in Eastern province.

British Expertise, formerly BCCB, is the leading UK private sector organization for British companies offering professional services internationally. It is responsible for introducing members to key British and international contacts.

London-based British Expertise, an independent not-for-profit trade association, has about 250 corporate consultant members who range from most of the large UK general consultants to a wide variety of other smaller consulting companies including a number of skilled individual members.

The expertise of these members covers a wide variety of sectors and many different disciplines with a global reach that means that they are working in virtually every country in the world. In addition, the Corporate Construction membership includes most UK construction companies that do business internationally.

“Our members may be based in the UK or abroad, but they offer a wide range of world-class knowledge-based skills, and the role of British Expertise is to help them market these international,” Dowrick said.“We do this by introducing members to key contacts and to potential partners and clients, and by supplying market intelligence and training. Our wide range of contacts in the UK and overseas means we can offer excellent networking opportunities, and also effective lobbying in our members’ interests,” he added.

David Summerfield, senior partner of Foster+Partners, said: “Our architecture is driven by the pursuit of quality. It is not just buildings but urban design that affects our wellbeing.

We are concerned with the physical context of a project, sensitive to the culture and climate of the place.” The quest of quality embraces the physical performance of buildings, he added.

The delegation also included Black & Veatch, a global engineering, consulting and construction company, United Utilities, the UK’s largest listed water and wastewater company; Hyder Consulting, which is helping to shape the environment and infrastructure throughout the Middle East; Marshall Specialist Vehicles, which designs produces and deploys transportable specialist buildings, vehicles and shelters the latest being a fully air deployable shelter based hospital for the Norwegian authorities; and Control Risks, an independent business risk consultancy.