I taly’s Imer Group, a European leader in the manufacture of a range of construction equipment, is boosting its presence in the Middle East as it spreads its wings internationally.

On the heels of opening a base in Miami in the US earlier this year, the company has now opened a sales branch in the Lenbanese capital of Beirut, called Imer Middle East.
“Our development strategy certainly involves expansion on international markets,” says Silvano Bencini, chairman and managing director of the Imer Group. “In particular, the new branch will help to improve our group’s standing on the Middle East market in the segment of concrete mixing plants and truck mixers, but also of construction equipment and mortar and plaster pumps.”
The branch, which occupies a total area of 400 sq m – 100 sq m for offices and 300 sq m for warehouse, has been strategically located in Beirut because of Lebanon’s commercial and financial influence as a privileged port of interaction between western markets and the Middle East.
Within two years, the Siena-based firm believes its exports to Middle East markets will reach $12.8 million owing particularly to sales of products not only made by the concrete machinery division – which manufactures machines and plants for the production, transport and laying of concrete – but also by the construction machinery division, which deals with the manufacture of concrete mixing lines, and the new production division for mortar and plaster pumps, which makes plastering pumps, mortar screw pumps, floor-screed conveyors, continuous mixers and transfer systems for silos.
This year, Imer Group expects its total exports to the Middle East to record a 35 per cent growth. The countries contributing to the growth include Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, the UAE and, in the near future, also Iraq and Iran.
“The new branch,” Bencini continues, “will act as gateway to countries of the Middle East like Bahrain, the UAE, Jordan, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Yemen, Sudan, Iraq and Qatar.”
The new facility will initially employ four people and distribute products within the Imer brand. It is a result of the joint venture signed between the Imer Group and the Lebanese group Sehnaoui Plant, which has been distributing the Tuscany group’s products under the ORU brand for 10 years. The commercial agreement between the two companies expects the new branch to be a qualified after-sales service and spares centre, ready to offer the end-customer the answer to every requirement and the solution to every problem.
“The agreement,” says Bencini, “offers the opportunity to reap the rewards of our expertise and our considerable range of products through Sehanui Plant’s operations and distribution and sales logistics. And all this offers a broad margin of development to the Imer Group in the Middle East in the intention of creating a distribution network to secure our presence and logistics in a market area with its own socio-economic characteristics and with important development opportunities in the coming years.”
Imer Group will make available to Middle East markets key stocks of products, readily available in the shortest time possible. The new decentralised distribution network in the Middle East with local importers in the various countries will be in a position to develop the highest level of competitiveness while remaining within a service system run by the Beirut branch. 
In view of an increasingly globalised market, the Imer Group has set its sights on the growth of exports through ventures on new markets and the development of new sales branches. At present, the group is present in 36 countries and has eight foreign sales branches – France, England, Spain, US, Russia, Singapore, Miami and Lebanon – and distribution agreements with partners operating in other countries of the European Union, East European countries, Vietnam, South Africa, India, Tunisia, Canada, Scandinavia, China and Turkey.
At present the group, which in 2005 manufactured a total of over 100,000 units among construction machinery, machines and plants for the production, transport and laying of concrete and earthmoving equipment, employs over 500 people, excluding employees at its four overseas production plants.
Established in 1962 as an artisan manufacturing firm for small construction machines and equipment, the Imer Group is now an international industrial concern with four production divisions: the construction machinery division, which deals with the manufacture of the concrete mixing, hoisting, cutting and compacting lines and automatic car park systems; the spraying and handling machines division, which manufactures plaster sprayers, mortar screw pumps, floor-screed conveyors, continuous mixers and transfer systems for silos, which together cover 28 per cent of the turnover; the earthmoving equipment division which accounts for 36 per cent of the turnover and the concrete machinery division (machines and plants for the production, transport and laying of concrete) which represents 36 per cent of the turnover.