Huge plot allocated for Ajman Festival City

The Ajman government has allocated a huge 100,000 square metres to construct the Ajman Festival City next to the Ajman City Centre as part of a comprehensive plan to make the emirate an international destination for tourism, conferences, exhibitions and entertainment industry.

This year, initially some 50,000 square metres will be developed to organise Ajman Fantasia 2002, a grand shopping and entertainment festival to be held from January 16 to February 28, 2002.

The Ajman Festival City will have some permanent buildings and facilities to host festivals, exhibitions and conferences in future. The rest of the area of the city will be developed gradually in the near future.

Compared to the previous festival, a huge budget of Dh12 million has been earmarked for Ajman Fantasia 2002 to make the event a bigger and more successful show.

Sheikh Rashid bin Humaid bin Rashid Al Nuaimi, Chairman of the Higher Organising Committee, said that the festival aimed at enhancing the economic, cultural, social and entertainment activities in the emirate.

"The festival will be an entirely different event from the last festivals since we worked on various plans to chalk out a suitable formula to make it a big success," he said, adding that a lot of effort had been put in organising the festival.

He noted that not only the public and private sectors have joined hands to boost the business activities in the emirate, but there has also been great coordination between local and federal departments.

Sheikh Rashid observed that although festivals were being organised regularly in other emirates of the UAE and in many GCC countries, "we noticed that there is still great room for Ajman to have its own distinguished festival to get its share of the market and to reflect its heritage, culture and traditions."

The 44-day festival will be organised by Ajman Chamber of Commerce and Industry in co-ordination with the various public and private sector departments and companies.

Eyad Khalil Matter, Head of the Festival Activities Committee, said that Ajman Fantasia would carry an assortment of surprises.

"With decorated and illuminated streets and markets, fireworks, thrilling rides, skilled street performers, hundreds of retailing kiosks, fine cuisine, live media coverage and hundreds of thousands of people attending, our Ajman Fantasia will definitely be a meaningful and unique event.

"The Ajman Festival City will have a Chinese Village, Arabic Village, Indian Village, Kids Oasis, Main Stage for cultural and musical programmes and folkloric shows," he said, adding that the part of the festival's activities would be organised at the newly developed Ajman beach. There will be a Traditional and Heritage Village in addition to sports activities at the beach.

"The event will start on January 16 just as the school spring break starts and continues until February 28 including Eid Al Adha holidays providing enough shopping and entertainment activities to families and tourists," he noted.

Jamal Al Saeedi, Head of the City Centre Activity and Raffles Committee said: "There will be weekly raffle to give away cars, household items and a number of other gifts. People can participate in the month long draws by just spending Dh50 to shop from any participating outlet to get the coupon. The coupon will be valid for all the draws during the festival."

Abdul Aziz Zakri Al Jasmi, general coordinator of the festival, said that the festival would grow with the passage of time.

"This year, our target visitors and customers are residents of Ajman and neighbouring emirates in addition to visitors from GCC countries who normally come to the UAE during Eid Al Adha," he said, adding that they would not market the festival in Europe and Asia this time because they did not expect visitors from these countries.

Al Jasmi further said: "We have plans to progress the festival gradually and we will definitely reach out to European and Asian countries to establish Ajman as a new hub of entertainment and business activities. We are developing infrastructure in Ajman to host international exhibitions and conferences to enhance our business activities.

Some other members of the Festival Organising Committee included: Ghalib Kamil, Consultant; Humaid Ahmed Al Attar, Head of Public Relations Committee; Thani Obaid Al Matroushi, Head of Security Committee; Omar Abdulla Al Marzouki, Head of Media and Abdullah Ismael, Deputy Head of Media Committee.