Genie had its first sale – a ZX-135 – within the first hour of the event.
The heavy equipment section of The Big-5 event has struggled to justify its billing as the region’s premier showcase for construction equipment in the region since its inception in the second half of the last decade, however this year’s event built on the good work of 2012 to be the best in years.
Big name exhibitors such as JCB, Sany (present this year only via United Equipment’s mobile crane display) and Doosan have had their fingers burnt by successive shows where they were the big draw for the few visitors that made the effort to visit the show. The decline in numbers was understandable and inevitable as the market slowed and changed shape. Dealers and manufacturers had to adjust.
What was once a 100 machine per year market for manufacturers became a one machine market. As the boom years morphed into the downturn and it became harder to justify using falling budgets to merely maintain a profile.
By the standards of the shows at the turn of the decade, the 2012 was a massive step forwards, even if the event was missing some companies that had once been habitual exhibitors. Some chose to ignore the event all together and instead preferred to chance their arm at the Intermat Middle East show which could count on using the name and branding of one of Europe’s most established events.
While that event, which returns to Abu Dhabi in January, has held onto some names exclusively, notably Doosan, this year’s PMV Live saw a return of big brands willing to step out of their shadow of their dealer’s stands and take space on their own, such as Putzmeister.
Their decision to come back was seemingly justified – and it will be interesting to see if more return next year. More visitors turned up for The Big-5, PMV Live and MEC 2013 on the first day than attended the entire four-day event last year. The hustle and bustle returned to the show. Car parks were full even before the official opening time of 11am. The registration areas were packed too and for the first time the CMME team had to fight its way through the crowd to get onto the show floor.
As CMME caught up with familiar faces at their stands most were happy to report that they had made the right decision to participate. The worry lines of previous dissipated, it was a relief to see some genuine smiles in the PMV Live section.
In fact Genie, present beside increasingly regional player, Al Mahroos, even had its first sale a ZX-135 within the first hour of the event.
According to the regional sales manager Sharbel Kordahi, the buyer of the machine arrived from Iraq eager to snap up a purchase as quickly as possible.
“He wanted to pay by cheque but I had say no you have to invoice us!” said a clearly happy Kordahi.
Iraq was a market mentioned frequently at this year’s event and so was Iran. An impossible market to consider a year ago, there was uniform optimism that changing politics in the country could soon be followed by opportunities for those willing and with machines to sell.
It has been a long two years since Qatar was considered the most promising market in the Gulf and CMME spoke to Nixon Hire, which returned for the first time since 2010, to find out what progress it was making in the country since setting up there a few years ago.
Co-managing director Graham Nixon, told the magazine that the rental company remains confident that its move there will soon pay dividends as it looks to serve both the FIFA World Cup construction programme as well as other opportunities in neighbouring countries.
Lookout for CMME’s indepth interview with Nixon in next month’s magazine to get a full understanding of how it is expanding across the region and what problems you run into when you use the word hire (as in Nixon Hire) when everyone else, when it comes to naming their company, is turning to ‘rental’.
It was very difficult to move around PMV Live this year without seeing the massive banner for Hyundai and Al Wasit. Indeed the stack of Hyundai excavators were the dominant machines on display. A platinum sponsor this time around, Muhammed Al Ali told CMME that the event had been a great show for the Sharjah-based dealer.
PMV Live has been keen to add live demonstrations on the Main Concourse and unfortunately the tight confines of the World Trade Center do not lend themselves for heavy equipment routines especially when everyone is so tightly packed in. However MAN Trucks squeezed its simulator onto its stand as well as its ‘actual’ trucks.
Considering that MAN Trucks has used the PMV Live event to make massive in-roads into the truck scene in the UAE and wider GCC, it is perhaps mystifying that it remains the main manufacturer of its type at the event.
Al Mahroos’ secured the dealership of German attachment specialist Hunklinger at this year’s Bauma and the two company’s took the opportunity to debut this paving offering. Replacing hundreds of man-hours for contractors involved in road and pedestrian works, it is easy to see how the palletised paving attachment could find a strong, if very, niche for itself in the UAE, Qatar and even Saudi markets.
The organisers of PMV Live once again made the sensible decision to coax German exhibitors to the adjacent Saeed Halls, attracting firms such as Putzmeister and Bauer back to the event. While the PMV Live section was arguably the strongest in almost a decade, the Middle East Concrete hall was less impressive.
Formwork companies like Doka took warehouse-sized stands at Bauma but here they were low-key or absent, however the seminar programme which is housed in the same hall, had a strong line-up. Not as well attended as it deserved the seminar programme included an interesting if intimate overview of the use of tracking equipment on site, as well as a look at working at height with IPAF and the ministry of labour (moderated by CMME).
Beyond PMV Live, the Dubai Municipality used the event to explaind its new Building Code Guidelines. Kamal Azayem, mechanical engineering expert at Dubai Municipality, told seminar goers that there were currently 40 buildings in Dubai that were in line with the new Green Building codes, with two already complete and certified.
Contractors present at the seminar were taken through what they could expect from the codes and given examples of how these were already being put into practice.
The new guidelines will enforce a number of construction and operational specifications that are meant to make buildings more sustainable and efficient, Azayem added.
This year’s four-day had a little something for everyone, and as PMV Live and MEC continue to evolve you hope that the extra visitors will next time make the most of what is once again a fine show.