Eurocon Building Industries, a member of Mulk Group of Companies and a leading manufacturer of aluminium composite panels under the brand name of Alubond USA, has awarded UAE retail distribution rights for its products to Danube Building Materials.

Under an agreement signed at the recent Big 5 show, Danube Building Materials will stock and sell Alubond in 21 showrooms spread across the UAE, Middle East and Africa.
Mulk Group chairman Shaji Ul Mulk said: “We are excited about the association with Danube as it gives our brand widespread exposure and an opportunity to penetrate the large customer base through Danube’s network. This distribution strategy is consistent with our current programme of making Alubond available to the widest possible customer base.”
“Earlier last year, we have also signed an agreement for our West Europe Distribution with the world-renowned Corus Group,” Ul Mulk said.
Rizwan Sajan, chairman of Danube group, expressed his satisfaction at this association and the addition of Alubond panels to the company’s extensive range of 1,000 building products.
As part of the deal, Danube will also provide display area for Alubond in all its showrooms in addition to organising marketing campaigns as well as product training to the 40-strong sales team of Alubond, ensuring a thorough penetration of the product in the market. Initially, all the showrooms will stock between 600 sq m to 800 sq m of the popular colours.
“Alubond panels, manufactured in the UAE under licence from the American firm American Building Technologies Incorporated (ABTI), have been tested in independent laboratories of the US and Germany. The panels have recorded high ratings for delaminating strength, resistance to heat and offer a fire rating of 102 minutes,” says the spokesman.
Alubond’s expansion plans include the setting up of new production plants in the US and Europe, besides an additional two plants in the UAE.
One of these facilities will come up at Jerf in Ajman.
Work on the second facility in Sharjah’s Hamriya Free Zone is at an advanced stage of expansion and is set for completion by September 2008.
The new 400,000 sq ft manufacturing and office facility will increase the company’s production capacity in the UAE to more than 4 million sq m and will be the largest production base of Alubond panels. The facility is also backed by a high-speed coating line of 1,600 mm width and an in-house LDPE (low-density polyethylene) core processing plant, says the spokesman.
The European and US bases will produce another three million sq m, thus boosting the company’s total annual capacity to 7 million sq m. This increase in capacity should see Alubond becoming one of the world’s top three, if not the largest, manufacturers of aluminium composite panels.