Leading French construction specialists building Middle East success at The Big 5

51 leading French companies exhibited at The Big 5 2007, and many more are already confirmed for 2008, both as part of the official French Pavilion (which is organised by UbiFrance, the French agency for international business development) and as independent exhibitors.

'Bigger and better than ever before, The Big 5 2007 featured 2,839 companies from 52 countries and 30 national pavilions,' said Bernard Walsh, Managing Director of dmg world media Dubai, organisers of the event. 'This emphatically underlined the fact that the MENA region is one of the world's most active and important markets for the global construction industry, and the significant role that The Big 5 plays in building the Middle East'.

In 2008, The Big 5 will again present a comprehensive showcase of the very latest product and service innovations in the construction sector, and this will include French company Ugitech, a world-leading manufacturer of stainless steel long products (bars, wire rods and drawn wires), with worldwide sales of over 200,000 tons of product every year.

Ugitech, which celebrates its centenary this year, will be at The Big 5 for the third consecutive year.

'We decided to take part to this exhibition because The Big 5 is the most famous building exhibition in both the Middle East and the world,' said Gwennaël Godot of Ugitech. 'The Middle East is the place to be in the field of building - the organisation of The Big 5 is very good and the contacts we make during the event are always of a high quality. At this year's show, we will present our entire product range, with a focus on Ugigrip®, our stainless steel rebars for concrete structures. We are also building a local stock in Dubai, which means that we can improve our service to customers, offering a full range of products: engineering, free-cutting and tool steel for both carbon and stainless steel'.

The risk of corrosion in the Arabian Gulf is one of the highest anywhere in the world - Ugitech's product range offers the very highest corrosion-resistance while at the same time being eco-friendly.

The recent renovation of the Mosque Hassan II in Casablanca was undertaken using Ugigrip.

In total contrast, and indicative of the diverse selection of products and services on show, another of the French companies exhibiting at this year's Big 5 is the Yves Pertosa Group, which, since 1977, has been designing and manufacturing 'spaces of well-being' ranging from bathrooms to spas, and is internationally regarded as the 'haute couture' of bathrooms and spas.

The Pertosa factory, located in the south of France, produces unique pieces of furniture and refined bathtubs (featuring marble, gold finish, stone inlays, art paintings, etc.,), showers, latest generation spas that are cutting edge in terms of design and technology, plus hammams, all of which are fitted, if required, with customised hydrotherapy.

Petrosa's R&D department designs to any project brief, offering refined, traditional or contemporary lines to fulfil any and every requirement. More than 1,000 colours are available as well as 6 different kinds of wood and fully personalised fittings.

'This will be our first time at The Big 5 - we chose this exhibition because of its reputation - we are in a luxury market and think that Dubai is a place where we can do real business,' said Florence Pertosa.

Tramvestor France was established as an investment company in 2003, but now operates a specialised water solutions company - Pipeco Safe Water Solutions Sdn Bhd - explained Philippe Alliaume of Tramvestor/Pipeco.

'Having dedicated our investment in environment related companies, we decided to start a business unit in order to help European companies actively promote their technologies in the world'.

'We have concentrated our efforts in water treatment technologies promoting domestic waste water technology from France and Belgium, with a core business in small to medium range capacity treatment plants and a support engineering team in France with engineers with 20 years of expertise in the field,' added Alliaume. 'Our processes include intensive purification technologies, membrane technologies with implementation in concrete tanks, double wall polyethylene tanks and GRP tanks. We also offer water securisation, with a new and unique generation of UV solutions for complete water securisation that delivers water that is 100% free of bacteria and virus at the distribution point, and water based emulsions for formworks - 100% green and biodegradable,' he added.

'2007 was our first year exhibiting at The Big 5 - we had visited the show a couple of times and decided to exhibit after the completion of our venture. We made a tremendous amount of contacts from Middle East, Africa and even Europe, and met potential distributors for our products. As a result of this success, we are exhibiting in 2008, showing among other new products our latest GRP tank dedicated to waste water treatment plant - water treatment is evidently a must-have in this market and there is fantastic potential given that the rate of construction is so high - we also have the distinct impression that French expertise is fully recognised in the region,' he concluded.

'2008 will see The Big 5 once again deliver the biggest and best ever showcase of construction related products and services ever seen in the region,' added Walsh. 'We are confident that we will again break our all-time record number of professional trade visitors, which last year totalled 50,420 - an increase of 22.8% on 2006 - including strong growth in the number of visitors from outside the UAE'.

'But over and above the pure number of visitors, The Big 5 is designed specifically to generate business, and that's exactly what happened this year, with many multi-million dollar deals either signed or agreed as the result of meetings held at the show'.