Al Aqili Furnishings raise industry stakes with 42% increase in turnover

This increase concurs with future plans to further enhance AAF's market position within the United Arab Emirates in addition to their regional expansion efforts to serve the entire GCC market.

"At Al Aqili Furnishings, we push the envelope across the furnishing and design industry and its sectors, setting the industry standard for flooring and interior related segments. Against the current global financial downturn, we will continue to build upon our current success across all our divisions by continually focusing upon widening our commitment to providing clients and consumers with top delivery of products and services", said Shahriar Khodjestah, AAF's Group Marketing Director.

A large proportion of AAF's remarkable growth can be attributed to the vast number and variation of corporate projects that the company has secured and delivered throughout 2008, reflecting the steady increase in regional business.

Several large scale corporate projects completed by AAF include the Dhs6.5m Workers' City in Abu Dhabi with over 200,000 square metres of PVC Vinyl fitted.

In addition, the flooring division has supplied and fitted 40,000 square meters flooring materials worth over Dhs5.5m to Dubai Studio City, as well as an Dhs4m Dubai Airport Freezone project where they provided 45,000 square metres of carpet tiles from the American supplier Shaw Industries.

Other large scale projects executed by AAF include Abu Dhabi's prestigious Ferrari City and Al Raha Village as well as Harvard Medical School and JAL Hotel in Dubai, in addition to the complete furnishing projects of Bin Drai's The Place and Fakhruddin Properties' Coral International Hotel Apartments.

AAF's presence in the market was reaffirmed last year when they were presented with an award from global flooring manufacturer, Shaw Industries, which saw AAF placed third in the world for sales volume for the company which is the largest producer in the world. Their success has continued recently with record orders being placed with key suppliers including the largest single order of half a million square meters of exhibition carpet from Belgian manufacturer Beaulieu and a staggering 35,000 square meters of high end carpet from Fabrica of the USA.

"We have increased the capacity of our inventory as we now stock over 2 million square metres of flooring products, worth over Dhs40m. This gives us the competitive advantage of supplying to our clients on time and looking after our multi-layered and sophisticated market relationships as a contractor, distributor and retailer,"

added Khodjasteh.

In 2009 AAF's strategy will become more product orientated focusing on specialised areas of the industry, such as the already launched dedicated divisions of wooden flooring, PVC flooring, carpets and other products to enable the company to continue on its current path of extraordinary growth.