Alessa Industries has announced on Tuesday a $200 million joint venture with US Huntair Group to build air-conditioning units in Saudi Arabia, company executives announced on Tuesday at a press conference in Dubai. Under the agreement, Alessa will start manufacturing Huntair units in the first quarter of 2011. Huntair Group is a a subsidiary of CES Group, Inc., manufacturer of innovative custom air-handling solutions for controlling the environment inside buildings and in manufacturing processes. In a press statement, the Riyadh-based company said the announcement was made in Dubai on the sidelines of the ongoing international building and construction show - the Big 5 2009. Engineer Ahmed Saeed Al Omari, CEO of Alessa Industries, said the new company's goal is to share the industrial and market experience in addition to increase the manufacturing lines of Alessa Industries combined with innovation and latest technology. He added that the agreement includes training Saudi engineers in the fields of manufacturing and design in the US, as well as educating technicians and market specialists at Huntair Group's base. Al Omari also said the over $200 million investment in the joint venture was based on market studies showing huge demand in high-quality air handling units amid an increased in both public and private projects as population grows. Al Omari added the company has displayed innovative and developed air handling units that are unique with high standards in the ongoing exhibition. He said Alessa Industries is considered as one of the leading industrial groups in Saudi Arabia and one of the top sellers of home air handling products in the Middle East. The company's market share in air handling manufacturing and processing in the Kingdom alone reaches to over 28 percent, he pointed out. Alessa Industries includes three major companies that cover trade, manufacturing and construction, i.e, Hamad Abdullah Alessa and Sons and Alessa Air Handing Co., in addition to Alessa Enterprises. Moreover, Al Omari said the company has recently expanded investments in manufacturing and development, and have restructured the company's activities to boost productivity. Huntair, a subsidiary of the CES Group, is a relative newcomer to the Middle East. Its first business in Saudi Arabia so far has been an $85 million sale of equipment to the new King Abdullah University north of Jeddah. The company sees promising market in the fast-developing Kingdom. “We believe that in the next four to five years, there's in excess of $1 billion in business” at stake in Saudi Arabia, Huntair vice-president and chief operating officer John Albert said. Huntair opened a sales office early in the week in Abu Dhabi's Masdar City. Its products are already available in the emirates. Other markets in the pipeline include Syria, Iraq and Qatar. Oregon-based Huntair generated $150 million in annual sales last year, a bigger portion of which was obtained through sales contract to King Abdullah University. Eng. Nawaf Abdullah Almasoud, president of Alessa Advanced Projects, said Huntair's technology relies on a modular design of several smaller fans instead of a single large one, making its air-conditioners more energy-efficient and quieter than other competitors. __
