The Sharjah Commerce and Tourism Development Authority (SCTDA) promoted Sharjah as an ideal tourist and business destination during the inaugural UAE-France Partnership Forum.

Chairman Shaikh Sultan bin Ahmed Al  Qassimi deftly exploited the opportunities presented at the event to showcase the facilities available in the Emirate.

The Sharjah stand was visited by a number of high-profile businessmen and other VIPs, including Shaikha Lubna Al Qassimi,  Shaikh Hamdan bin Zayed Al Nahyan and the French minister of transport Dominique Bussereau.

Shaikh Sultan highlighted a number of key attractions, including the established industrial areas as well as those currently under development, the myriad museums, cultural and heritage sites, retail outlets and luxury hotels, and the new hotel classification system, whose implementation is set to begin early in 2008.

 “We have taken significant steps towards establishing a favourable investment climate with a sound legal framework, highly developed infrastructures, and sophisticated services and facilities,” said Shaikh Sultan.

“This, along with the numerous investment opportunities, makes Sharjah an attractive destination for businessmen and investors from all over the world thanks to the successful investment schemes and the new policies adopted by the Sharjah government to gain a global reach,” he added.

Shaikh Sultan also met with a number of French business people, among them general manager of a top tour operations firm Jürgen Bachmann to discuss Sharjah’s tourism and leisure industry. 

Bachmann praised SCTDA’s approach to the promotion of tourism in the Emirate, saying that Sharjah’s unique cultural identity and firm grasp of its roots are key to the continued growth of the region’s tourism industry.

“The increasing level of interest generated by our ongoing promotional campaign among regional as well as international publics indicates the strength of this approach to achieving our objectives in the long term.  We are very pleased with our achievements thus far, and are pleased with the progress we’ve made in France during this event,” said director general of SCTDA Mohamed A. Al Noman. – TradeArabia News Service