New MEPRA committee formed

"The past year has been a significant one for the PR industry in the Middle East," said outgoing MEPRA chairman Sadri Barrage, Managing Director of Headline PR. "Our members have seen a healthy overall increase in business and standards of practice among MEPRA members have continued to set new benchmarks for the region's fast growing PR industry." Barrage will remain on the new committee as Vice-Chairman.

MEPRA estimates that PR fee billings across the region could approach US$ 100 million for 2007 and predicts an annual growth of 20-25 percent. Fast growing sectors in the region include finance, real estate, health, IT & tourism. MEPRA's membership includes 26 full and associate PR agency members.

"Public relations management is today considered as business critical by a large and growing number of organisations in the Middle East's public and private sectors," said Jack Pearce, Managing Director of Matrix PR, on being elected as MEPRA chairman. "The future is very bright, although as an emerging market the region still has significant challenges to meet such as growing the pool of available PR talent, understanding the full PR tool-set and poor standards set by some companies unwilling to invest in best practices and the right skills."

The International Committee of Public Relations Consultancies Associations (ICCO) 2006 World Report found that the Middle East was one of the three highest growth regions for PR services in the world and one of the areas that has attracted the attention of PR companies worldwide. The ICCO's membership consists of PR associations from all over the world including MEPRA and represents the global interests of leading PR consultancies across more than 30 countries.

The new committee for the Dubai Media City-registered MEPRA includes the heads of ten of the region's leading public relations agencies increasing the number of committee members from the nine that sat on the past year's committee. Four of the ten are first-time committee members.

Discussions at the AGM also included plans for the coming 12 months including a number of new education initiatives. "Education is always going to be focus area for MEPRA," said Pearce. "There is an overall shortage of talent and this is both the main constraint on growth and on maintaining high standards across the industry. Part of MEPRA's efforts will be to encourage local country chapters of the association around the region to help address education and awareness issues at a more grass roots level."

MEPRA launched an online training programme in conjunction with the International Communications Consultancy Organization (ICCO) this year via mepra.org and aims to continue to develop joint ICCO-MEPRA educational programs.

Since its inception in 2001, MEPRA has grown to 41 members, comprising 19 full members, seven associate members, four affiliate members, 10 individual members and 1 corporate member collectively providing a comprehensive range of PR services for a broad spectrum of local and multinational companies and organisations. MEPRA's members provide regional representation for most of the leading global PR players, including Brodeur|Pleon Worldwide, Burson-Marsteller, ECCO, Edelman, GCI, GolinHarris, Hill & Knowlton, MS&L, Ogilvy, Porter Novelli International and Weber Shandwick.

Since MEPRA was formed in 2001 it has encouraged and promoted the region's public relations industry by helping to raise professional standards in consultancy practice, raise awareness of PR as an important economic and social activity and provided a forum for the discussion of PR industry issues.