SAUDI ARABIAN COMPANY ENTERING NEW MARKETS
SAUDI ARABIAN COMPANY ENTERING NEW MARKETS
Saudi Arabian holding company Mayar Holding, parent of Gulf Elevators & Escalators Co. (GEEC), is looking to expand beyond the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nations into Egypt and Iraq, Thomson Reuters Zawya reported on December 5. Mayar CEO Abdulamajed Alshaikh said the GCC nations — Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman — were hit hard by the worldwide decline in oil prices that began in 2014, which is prompting the expansion. GEEC is the exclusive distributor for Japanese elevator brand Fuji in the GCC and other parts of the Middle East, Africa and Europe.
ELEVATORS AMONG GROWTH DRIVERS FOR HITACHI IN CHINA
Demand for elevators, along with a strong economy and recovering construction sector, is driving growth for Hitachi in China, the Nikkei Asian Review reports. The company's Chinese sales had been expected to surpass US$8.9 billion through the year ending in March 2018, and reach at least US$9.7 billion by March 2019. Hitachi President Toshiaki Higashihara said smart manufacturing and electric vehicles will be among the focuses going forward. Business has been steady, he said, despite concerns that the twice-a-decade Communist Party Congress, last held in October 2017, would result in an economic slowdown.
WORLD CUP BRINGS ELEVATOR BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES
The Qatar Ministry of Economy and Commerce says the 2022 FIFA World Cup is bringing demand for an estimated 110 elevators at stadiums, The Peninsula reports. The ministry said most of the elevators will be machine-room-less, with speeds of 1.0 to 1.6 mps. They must comply with EN 81-20/-50 and EN 81-70. Some of the lifts must also comply with EN 81-72 requirements for firefighting. The procurement timeline is 2017-2018.
TOKYO POSTERS TARGET ESCALATOR CLIMBERS
Posters at Tokyo's Nerima rail station are urging an end to the practice of escalator riders standing to one side to allow others to climb the moving stairs, Sora News 24 reports. The Tokyo Metropolitan Physical Therapy Association and Japan Elevator Association, citing concerns about safety and inefficiency, recently placed posters at the station to raise awareness of the benefits of standing on both sides of an escalator. The posters highlight dangers escalator climbers face, as well as the nuisance they create when they hit people they are walking past. They also point to a recent experiment in London that showed escalators tran
