Investing and expanding business during last year's recessionary environment has paid off for the BMMI group.

The Bahrain-based company saw its sales and profit increase last year across all its markets in spite of the global downturn.

BMMI which is a wholesaler, retailer and distributor of food and beverages, saw its profit rise from BD7.5 million ($20 million) to BD9 million on sales that rose from BD80.4 million to BD87.1 million.

Sales in Bahrain were up from BD47.4 million to BD49.7 million, elsewhere in the GCC from BD18.8 million to BD19.8 million and in its other international markets from BD14.2 million to BD17.6 million.

'While the group was not directly affected by the global financial crisis and economic downturn, we were not immune to the subsequent downside impact on markets in the key regions where we operate, primarily the GCC and Africa,' said chairman Abdulla Buhindi.

'The mild revival in the global macroeconomic environment - including the strong recovery of oil prices - which occurred towards the end of the second quarter last year was a welcome development.

'However, the sustainability of economic growth and renewed business confidence, particularly in the GCC region remained largely unpredictable at the end of the year, driven by unexpected corporate defaults, the overleveraging of some major wholesale banks and the Dubai debt standstill.

'In response to the crisis, BMMI adopted a positive and proactive approach,' he said. 'We took the view that by growing and expanding the business during a recessionary period, the group will be in a stronger position when full recovery of the markets eventually occurs.

'Accordingly, we did not contract or cut costs across the organisation but increased our investment in the future growth of BMMI as well as continuing to expand our business operations and global presence.'

'All business divisions, subsidiaries and joint ventures successfully continued to expand their operations, posting strong year-on-year revenue growth and contributing to the group's bottom line,' he added.-TradeArabia News Service