Rich oil sheikhs like New Zealand carpets

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33791, 13 March 1975, Page 21

Rich oil sheikhs like New Zealand carpets

A well-dressed Arab 1 r.aiked into the London car- : pet showroom of UEB In-]’ Castries, Ltd. one morning recently, asked to be shown I e range of shag-piles, and i 'it half an hour later —j laving behind a $16,000 aeque for 1200 sq.yds of ■ tarpet. The bank cleared the t neque the same afternoon,; >tying it did not think there ■•ould be any problem with it. The carpet was for a sheikh’s palace. Mr Mark Sainsbury, UEB’s I carpet exports manger in Auckland, reports this as an ?xample of how the company has been chasing the newly-wealthy Middle East ! market. “The point of the story is that the sheikh had seen the. product in another sheikh’s palace and decided he must' nave it too,” he said. The free-spending Arab! who astonished UEB’s London staff was acting for! Sheikh Zayed of Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates ! The $16,000 order was for! 16 rolls of shag-pile carpet! in three qualities and a variety of colours, including a: pink which UEB makes specially for Harrod’s in London. “UEB has always seen potential for carpet sales in! the Middle East but our! interest has been sharpened! since the great surge in oil riches,” said Mr Sainsbury. “Working through leading! London interior decorators j we have supplied carpet for several Middle East palaces over the last two years, but late last year one of our London salesmen was sent] on a one-man mission to] Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Doha,! Dubai and Kuwait. “His report said that Arabj countries are still generally j conditioned to buying cheap-! quality products, in spite of j the new wealth, but that] there is nevertheless a mar-] ket for luxury-class goods. ] And this is the one we are] interested in.’’ As a result of the initial] sates trip UEB is now supplying carpet regularly to a] Bahrain importer and it has] hopes of wider outlets be-] fore long. Mr Sainsbury, who headed UEB’s London sales team before returning to Auckland last year, is a member of the New Zealand trade de-j legation which leaves on

March 13 for a three-week selling tour through the Middle East. “I hope to be looking up a few 7 sheikhs in the process, on the strength of what happened in London,” he said.