Corus International supplies steel for world’s largest shopping space

31 Jan 2006

The Corus International Middle East team have supplied a total of 14,500 tonnes of steel products for the Dubai Mall - the largest shopping space in the world with over nine million feet of retail, residential and entertainment facilities.

Having tracked the Dubai Mall project from the day it was announced in early 2004, the local Dubai team in Jebel Ali Free Zone was finally rewarded for its efforts in August 2005 with an order from its customer, Eversendai, for 6,500 tonnes of hollow sections, 4,500 tonnes of sections and 3,000 tonnes of plate – all ex Corus mills - and 500 tonnes of Jumbo SHS from third parties. With a portion of the initial take-off supplied from stock, production of all items was completed by November.

One of the fastest growing tourist destinations on the global tourist map, Dubai is going flat out to capture a massive slice of this trade. An integral, and perhaps the most magnetic, part of this strategy, the mall will host over 1000 speciality shops located within the ten to fifteen distinct ‘malls-within-a-mall’ as they have been described. The world’s largest gold souk (market), an ice rink, a three storey aquarium featuring glass tunnels for close encounters with sharks and stingrays and, for world haute couture - an 850,000 square feet fashion island are all part of the attraction. When finished, this year, the mall will be larger than fifty international soccer pitches and is expected to attract over many millions of visitors in the first year of its operation.

A continuing factor in winning this type of business is the close working relationship enjoyed locally by Corus with Eversendai and other leading contractors in the region. The Dubai team are conscious of the importance of providing the customer with a dependable service before and after receipt of the order and whatever assistance is required in obtaining the contract.