Snorkel continues to thrive in Middle East

Snorkel's long standing dealers in Syria and Lebanon continue to make inroads into the market following the absorption of the UpRight brand into Snorkel.

Baladi Frères SAL, Snorkel's distributor in Lebanon, recently attended the nation's major annual construction equipment exhibition, Project Lebanon, which took place in the capital city of Beirut. There it showed the Snorkel UL25 push-around mast lift and distributed its own new, Snorkel-branded sales brochures.

Carl Baladi, owner of Baladi Frères, said: "The show was really good and we demonstrated the UL25 a lot, so it attracted considerable interest. We have several enquiries for access platforms that we are already following up."

Baladi is also the Lebanese dealer for Massey Ferguson, JCB and Linde. And along with its head office in Beirut, the company has a sales and service centre in the Bekaa Valley and an additional service centre to the north, in Gharzouz.

In Syria the Snorkel dealer, AL-IMAM Trading has sold its first Snorkel lift. AL-IMAM delivered a new Snorkel A46JRT articulated boom to a cement and construction materials manufacturer based in the city of Aleppo.

AL-IMAM has been Snorkel's Syrian distributor for 14 years, during which time it has supplied trailers, scissor lifts, booms and push-around lifts to a variety of businesses and public sector bodies, including the national theatre and airports.

Eng. Dia'a eddin AL-IMAM, who is the owner of AL-IMAM Trading Est said, "The customer was very impressed with the performance and power of the Snorkel A46JRT. The CEO (chief executive officer) and his technicians all gave us very positive feedback.

"We were loyal UpRight distributors for many years and I was unsure about how the Syrian market would react to the brand change.

"But the machines look fantastic in orange, black and white and we are pleased to see the Snorkel product range is growing even stronger.

"Furthermore, we managed successfully the difficult balance between quality and competitive price to win another tender. The main municipality in Damascus, after professional technical evaluation, has awarded us a contract for six TL49J DC lifts, which we expect will arrive in Syria towards the end of August."