Dubai Investments subsidiary Emirates Building Systems (EBS) hopes to win a sizeable slice of the GCC market for prefabricated steel structurals and allied products used in the construction industry.

The company, which has a capacity of 50,000 tonnes of steel structures per year and exports 30 per cent of its production to the region, said the trend towards pre-engineered steel building structures augurs well for its products.

"The emerging trend is towards constructing commercial buildings and towers in steel structure form rather than the conventional way of concrete and steel," it said. It added that the method is already used on a large scale in South-East Asia, the Pacific Rim and the U.S., and is now gaining momentum in the UAE, Bahrain and neighbouring GCC countries due to the advantages of cost and time saving, and operational flexibility.

The company, together with Dubai Investments, recently conducted a convention on New Trends in Steel Construction, chaired by Khalid bin Kalban, CEO, Dubai Investments, and attended by 300 industry delegates.