Tools and Trade Fair 2009 to reflect growth in DIY market

Elisabeth Brehl, Managing Director of Epoc Messe Frankfurt, said:

"Due to the economic recession and the global credit crunch, people are generally reluctant to move house, and are instead turning their focus on improving their home and living conditions resulting in DIY hardware growth."

Ms Brehl noted that this could be an effort to make their properties more sellable in the market, or simply to make them more comfortable until the housing market recovers.

Most of the major DIY stores and home improvement retailers globally have reported a surge in business.

"People are more eager to do the jobs themselves, that they may have typically paid for a professional to do, to save some money, and this includes tasks such as fixing a plaster, decking, wallpaper, patios, laminate flooring and tiles, curtains and canopy porches among others," Ms Brehl remarked.

The DIY market is expected to boom with the major growth driver being the economical logistic costs. It is expected that in the next few years, construction hardware products will mainly be designed for easy installation and maintenance, which will ultimately make the DIY tools & products quite popular.

"There is definitely a move from individual homeowners towards DIY," Ms. Brehl says. "We have observed an increase in demand from indi-viduals wishing to purchase power tools, hand tools and the more portable types of specialist equipment to tackle projects in their prop-erties with a view to home improvement."

The large and increasing expatriate population of the GCC have traditionally had an interest in home improvement and DIY, where Europeans and other Arab expats are more inclined towards DIY solutions. Hardware & Tools Middle East will showcase all the latest home improvement products under one roof.

Hardware & Tools will see the whole range of industry equipment and services being demonstrated, with many well-known brands either displaying for the first time, or taking the opportunity to showcase recently launched products.