JEDDAH, 20 April 2008 — Saudi building and interiors exhibition (SBIE) ended its annual five-day run at the Jeddah International Exhibition & Convention Center over the weekend, with its organizers claiming an unprecedented success. A majority of national and overseas exhibitors reported deals that run into millions of riyals.
This 17th comprehensive showcase for the Saudi industry turned out to be an ideal event to attract not just the standard engineer, architect, consultant, specifier and designer, but also had a cross-section of professional visitors including hotel managers, school and hospital administrators and company and bank directors, aside from manufacturers and businessmen, said Zahoor Siddique, exhibitions director at Al-Harithy Company for Exhibitions Ltd., which organized the event.
“The exhibition’s record attendance reflected growing interest in the context of the ongoing real estate boom in the Kingdom,” he added.
Equally interesting and well attended was an engineering symposium organized by Saudi Quality Council, Western Region. It focused on a wide range of subjects related to the construction sector including pre-cast concrete in economic cities, increasing housing costs, the role of value engineering in the national economy, the status of the mining sector, Hail Economic City development, building of real estate development, an approach to environmentally friendly architecture, and new contractual approaches to avoid disputes.
Experts and members of SQC who gave presentations and conducted the discussion included Abdullah Khoja, Dr. Faisal Al-Shareef, Dr. Ayed Al-Amri, architect F. Khayyat and Dr. I. BaSunbul.
“I found the discussion on environmentally friendly architecture very interesting. In fact, this is what every builder and developer should bear in mind while embarking on a construction project,” Hussain Marzouki, an architecture student of King Abdul Aziz University, said.
Turkey had the largest participation with its pavilion exhibiting products and services of 31 companies.
Exhibitors from Bahrain, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Italy, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, the UAE and the United States, and many others from within the Kingdom said they found their participation useful as they could interact with local visitors and come to know what they want.