Guenther Seemann

Less than eight months into his role as Managing Director Middle East of the BMW Group, and Guenther Seemann is relishing being back in Dubai where he spent four-and-a-half years a decade ago setting up the regional headquarters.

Sales in Dubai are also up by 33% so far this year, and growth in neighboring Abu Dhabi is at 30%. To what does he attribute this performance?

'We have the right business partners in the UAE,' he says. 'Also we have seen an expansion of finance deals like in the US and Europe where people do not want to pay cash. And models like the X5 4.8-litre have been a best-seller in this market.

'In the UAE many of our target buyers are also buying property, and this has meant that they prefer to buy with finance rather than cash. It is a switch to something more like the normal model in Western countries.

'We are very happy about the real estate developments. The plan is for the population of Dubai to double to three million in four years, and everyone will want to have a new car! Of course, that will be bad for the traffic but Dubai is building more roads.'

Mr. Seemann was speaking after the launch of the BMW Alpina B7 supercar, a heavily modified version of the 7-Series, with a 500 bhp engine and new transmission that powers this 1,950kg car from 0-100 kph in just 4.8 seconds. Alpina expect to sell around 60 B7 cars in the Middle East this year.

'We have a lot of launches this autumn,' he adds. 'There is the new 1-Series coming up later this month, but the B7 is the new flagship of the BMW Alpina range. We are also looking forward to the launch of the new B7 in Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain and shortly afterwards in Saudi Arabia and Oman.'

The BMW regional boss notes that a commitment to stability in pricing has meant that prices have not 'yo-yoed with the euro' and that price increases have been 'normal and acceptable' in the market.

But he is hoping for higher sales in Saudi Arabia and Lebanon, and even Egypt in 2005. The last two markets he expects to benefit from increased tourism from the GCC states, a phenomenon of the past two years, and in Saudi Arabia the general strength of the economy should be a boost to BMW Group.

'Over the past three years the 7-Series has re-established BMW's leadership and we have sold more than 8,000 cars in the Middle East,' he concludes. 'Our new model line-up is second to none and for everyone there is a BMW car.'