The most prestigious auto award in the Middle East, with the coveted ‘Car of the Year’ honour as well as individual category winners, the results for the Middle East Motor Awards (MEMA) were announced at a ceremony held at Expo Centre Sharjah on November 3, 2011.
Transparency is a word that is uttered with caution in this region. The lack of information on many aspects of the automotive industry is obvious. Some aspects will change soon, however. We’ve had the pleasure of talking to Satish Singh, an automotive-industry veteran who started Tetrahedron Consulting to build up information on the GCC car market, one step at a time.
It was a busy week in the UAE automotive sector, with the launch of a new Peugeot showroom in Abu Dhabi, a Juke Missions campaign by Nissan, the announcement of fake parts raid by Toyota, the start of a new Maserati one-make race season, and a booster-seat giveaway by BMW.
There was a recent announcement from the UAE Ministry of Interior regarding installing children’s car seats, which supposedly makes it mandatory that children should use baby-seats in a car. While the details of that are still a bit vague, it will likely become an offence to carry kids on your lap for use as human airbags. Babies “R” Us, a division of, Toys “R” Us, sent us some guidelines for parents to help them find the right car seat for their child.
We are all used to those banners plastered around malls announcing discounts for customers. It is such a norm in Dubai that some outlets have discounts throughout the year. Keeping in mind with this image, Dubai police have announced 30% discount on traffic fines that were accumulated before September 10th 2011.
In what will become a blessing for consumers, a new rule is going to come into effect in October that all cars in the UAE will have a mandatory 5-year warranty.
FastFit, the name of Al Futtaim Motors’ new Express Tyre & Battery fitting centre, is apparently the UAE’s first company to install the fastest wheel aligner in the world, the 4D Master Aligner.
Bridgestone Middle East has just launched the ECOPIA EP100A tyre for the Middle East and Africa markets, at an event in Dubai, UAE. Bridgestone “rises up to the challenge in helping our planet” with this tyre, which apparently saves fuel thanks to lower rolling resistance.
India’s leading tyre manufacturer, the US$ 2 billion Apollo Tyres Ltd, today announced its plans for the Middle East market at a media gathering in Dubai. The region will be catered to by exports out of India, with Dubai as the hub of operations.
This may be old news for all those people suffering in Dubai and Sharjah, but there is yet another ongoing petrol shortage in these two cities, affecting residents for the past week, right in time for the summer.