Top officials from Dubai Aluminium Company Limited (Dubal) and Emirates Aluminium (Emal) were at the biennial World Trade Fair and Conference (Aluminium 2010) in Germany to promote the UAE’s growing primary aluminium sector in Europe.

This is the second time that Dubal, the state-owned enterprise that owns one of the world’s largest single-site aluminium smelters, and Emal, a high-tech greenfield aluminium smelter in ramp-up stage, jointly took part in the expo in Messe Essen, Germany.

The duo had earlier attended the Aluminium 2008 with the aim of promoting both the companies’ individual facilities and their combined product portfolio to delegates, participants and other visitors to the exhibition.

'Dubal and Emal’s joint participation formed part of a core strategy to position both companies to pursue the anticipated sales growth in European markets,' said Dubal’s Sultan Al Sabri, general manager (Marketing & Sales), Europe & North America, who delivered a presentation during the coincident conference.

Entitled “The role of the Middle East aluminium industry in a global context”, the presentation highlighted the growing significance of the region as a key global primary aluminium supplier.

Following the reduced demand for primary aluminium in Europe during 2009, as a result of the global economic recession, the levels of metal historically sold into the region is expected to be restored in the near-term, remarked Al Sabri.

“This presents exciting opportunities for marketing our own products plus the additional volume of primary aluminium products produced by Emal,” he said.

“Prior to Aluminium 2010, two large contracts with major players had already been secured for Emal slab and sheet ingot, for which delivery into Europe began in the third quarter of this year. These contracts represent our first foray into the rolling industry and, we believe, herald the start of ever greater inroads into the region as a whole,” he added.

Al Sabri pointed out that Europe had been strategically important for Dubal since the company’s first entry into the region in 1996.

“The Middle East is ideally located to serve Europe. We have capitalised on this over the years by developing a comprehensive infrastructure of discharge port facilities and warehouses that enable us to deliver our products efficiently across Europe,” he added.

Commenting on the expo, Al Sabri said, 'Many of our existing customers visited our stand, giving us the opportunity to continue building on our long-standing relationships and discuss business-related matters,” he noted.

“This infrastructure will now benefit Emal, given the contractual agreement between our two companies, in terms of which Dubal is responsible for marketing Emal’s products. With this in mind, we leveraged Aluminium 2010 as a platform to promote Emal slab and sheet ingot to the European market,” he added.-TradeArabia News Service