Eye facilities and energy management services market in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the wider Middle East

Majid Al Futtaim Ventures and Dalkia have announced an extension to their joint venture, initially agreed in 2002, which enables the companies to expand the MAF Dalkia brand of facilities and energy management services into the Gulf, the Levant and Egypt markets.

Ahmed Galal Ismail and Mohamed Lasri

As part of the expansion, MAF Dalkia will extend its focus to specific facilities and energy management opportunities in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt and other key areas, while leveraging regional and international expertise in healthcare, telecommunications and other important industry verticals across the region, the announcement said. By 2011, MAF Dalkia will be providing facilities and energy management services for an estimated 3.3 million square meters of commercial and residential space in the Middle East, in addition to managing at least 125,000TR cooling capacity and 2,550 Mwh power managed through various client initiatives, the announcement added.

Highlighting its plans, the announcement further stated that, to expedite the regional roll-out of the expanded joint venture, MAF Dalkia and Dalkia International would merge their current facilities management operations in Bahrain, where the companies list banks, shopping malls and mixed-use destinations among their current clients. New offices in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, Lebanon and Syria are planned in the near future, in order to strengthen the joint venture between Majid Al Futtaim Ventures and Dalkia, it explained.

In this context, Ahmed Galal Ismail, CEO of Majid Al Futtaim Ventures and Chairman of MAF Dalkia, said: “As an increasing number of commercial projects and towers in the region are completed, owners are looking for facilities management partners that have proven leadership in energy efficiency, operational cost reduction, and maximisation of resources. MAF Dalkia has this firsthand experience, and the expansion of our joint venture is, in large part, a response to customer demand around the region.”

Stressing the point further, Mohamed Lasri, CEO Dalkia Middle East, North Africa, and Turkey, added: “The wider Middle East market is one of the world’s fastest growing geographies for facilities management due to the need for competitive differentiation and cost management among building owners. No longer an afterthought and, in fact, set to eventually outpace the region’s construction sector, facilities and energy management is a strategic consideration for governments and private enterprises across the region, and MAF Dalkia is poised to advance its growth as an industry.”

MAF Dalkia claimed that with its focus on energy optimisation, it has reduced CO2 emissions by more than 36,000 tonnes in 2009 by introducing more sustainable facilities and energy management solutions for its clients, and is further committed to optimising energy use, with a corresponding energy savings of between 10% and 15%.

In addition to energy, telecom and healthcare, MAF Dalkia said that it has highlighted sectors such as hospitality, education, commercial real estate, industry, public sector and cooling plants as the major drivers for growth in the Middle East’s facilities management landscape in 2011.