CGI FORGES AHEAD INTO MIDDLE EAST

Glasstec 2008 Trade Show

Fire safety glass manufacturer CGI International is forging ahead into the Middle Eastern market, after a bumper crop of sales leads at last month’s Glasstec.

Over the five day event, Merseyside based CGI collated over 100 leads, more than 10 per cent of which were with glazers, architects and properly developers active in the Middle East.  Close negotiations with several of these companies in already well underway.

Steve Goodburn, the company’s Sales Director said:  “We’d identified the Middle East as one of our key growth territories, in particular because it is a hotbed of property development and building design. 

“We’ve been working hard to showcase how fire safety glass lends itself to more design led and architecturally challenging applications and these leads shows the message is getting through in the UK and further afield.”

Steve added: “Glasstec provided a great European platform for us to leverage and it’s certainly been our most successful event yet.”

 Sixty per cent of CGI’s fire safety glasses, including Pyroguard and Fireswissfoam, are already exported to countries across the globe including Holland, Ireland, France, Spain, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Australia, China, the USA and Turkey. The company is also looking to expand its presence in Eastern Europe. 

CGI recently invested more than £200,000 in a new R&D laboratory at its Merseyside headquarters and appointed a specialist polymer chemist.  CGI International is also due to invest another £250,000 in new testing equipment in 2009. The company now employs 55 people and is focusing on testing glasses to increase the tested size, application and performance of its products.