2nd German-Arab Water Conference on 21st/22nd April at Hanover Fair Ground
V-LINE CEO Detlev Daues sees a global growth market in the “blue gold”
Sehnde, Germany, 04/21/2006
Sehnde. With rapidly growing demand and increasing pollution in developing countries like China and India: Water – the “blue gold”, essential for human life, is developing as a major resource issue in the 21st century. The topic is being addressed by the 2nd German-Arab Water Conference, taking place on 21st and 22nd April at the Convention Center on the Fair Ground of the forthcoming Hanover Fair. All important Arab countries will take part: Expected are – amongst others – high-ranking delegations from Egypt, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
The conference is being organized by the Delegation of German Industry in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in co-operation with “Deutsche Messe AG” and the Foreign Chambers of Trade in North Africa and the Middle East under the patronage of Chistian Wulff, Lower Saxony Prime Minister. Mindful of the Quranic verse “We made from water every living thing” the conference will deal with all aspects of water – social/economic/technical – in creating a platform for communication between companies located in the Gulf region and domestic companies. Workshop sessions are scheduled with the topics: “water resources management”, “desalination”, “waste water purification”, “costs and operator models”. German know-how and technologies will be showcased in an accompanying exhibition. 100 billion US$ will have to be invested to expand desalination plant capacity in the Gulf States within the next ten years. These plants are the regions main source of drinking water and are also a major source of electric power.
“I see in the desalination as well as the complete water and waste water industry the global growth market of the 21st century”, Mr. Daues – participant of the conference – says. The CEO of V-LINE Europe Export GmbH located in Sehnde in the region Hanover knows what he is talking about. For more than 25 years he has been supplying spare parts to the Arab world as a procurement services provider to industrial plants of all kinds – for parts ranging from small stainless steel screws up to large pumps and compressors.
V-LINE started business in 1979 with deliveries to desalination plants – and became known to the Arab countries. This business sector still represents 20 % of the annual turn-over. One of the most important customers of V-LINE in Saudi Arabia is SWCC. The abbreviation stands for Saline Water Conversion Cooperation. SWCC operate 22 desalination plants in Saudi Arabia. Water is nowadays already more expensive and precious over there than oil. High-quality groundwater is scarcely existing – and will even decrease in the Near East in the future. “Sea water, however, is abundantly available”, Mr. Daues says. His company will be a sponsor of the 2nd German-Arab Water Conference.
Background: V-LINE Europe has more than 75 employees worldwide, 55 working at the head office in Sehnde. The rest are at a subsidiary in the USA and customer support branches in Mexico, Brazil and China. The company’s main business is managing the cross-border plant spare parts supply chain for overseas industrial plants back to their parts producer factories. To do this it maintains an efficient IT-network, digital customer catalogues and an automated warehouse that comprise its virtual warehouse service trademarked V-WARETM.
The company has approximately 100 large customers globally in 19 industries and reached a turn-over of approximately 40 million EUR in 2005. For additional details see the corporate website www.v-line.com.
