Mainers on mission to Dubai

The business of Hugh Reynolds’ company, Greenhead Lobsters, is to ship lobsters to faraway places.

This winter, the Stonington businessman is hoping to get more customers from really far away – the Persian Gulf emirate of Dubai.

Greenhead Lobsters will join the Maine International Trade Center on a trade mission Feb. 20-27 to the Gulfood food show there. Dubai is one of the seven United Arab Emirates on the Persian Gulf, which imported more than $11.6 billion in U.S. goods in 2007.

“We want to be pioneers in new markets,” Reynolds said.

Helping Maine’s small and medium-sized businesses like Greenhead Lobsters get global exposure and find new markets is what the trade center does.

There were seven industry and trade missions last year, said Janine Carey of the trade center, and they paid off with $9 million in contracted sales. She said that she had good hopes for success at Gulfood, the largest food show in the Middle East, where lobsters and other Maine specialties might be big hits. When trade center employees went to Dubai and the UAE last February to meet with local agricultural and commercial officials and scope out the city’s supermarkets, they found that blueberries, potatoes and seafood are already very popular.

“We usually do well at the food shows,” Carey said.

Dubai is a port city and has been a major trading hub of the Middle East at least since the early 1900s, she said. Many of the products that arrive there are re-exported to places such as East Africa, India and former Soviet republics. And there’s a large and growing market for goods that stay in the UAE, which imports 80 percent of its food and has the world’s highest per-capita income at $38,000, she said.

“I think there’s a lot of opportunity. Dubai’s becoming a hub for trade shows for the Middle East,” she said.

The trade mission won’t only focus on finding new markets for Maine foods at the Gulfood show. Trade center officials also have coordinated with the U.S. Department of Commerce to help Maine businesses respond to market demand in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, the capital of the UAE. The best prospects are in the boat building, marine product, building materials and biotech areas, officials think.

Dubai is known for its luxury hotels and homes, and it has a waterfront project that will extend the current coastline by 294 miles. Three Maine firms already sell boat-building components, building products and high-end wooden boat interiors to the emirates, according to Carey.

Health care is another growth industry in the UAE with a $5.4 billion project planned for Abu Dhabi to focus on health care services, research and organ transplants.

“With the tremendous growth that it’s had over the last 10 years, there are a lot of opportunities for companies,” Carey said.

Reynolds can vouch for the Maine international trade missions. Greenhead Lobster joined the MITC’s last food mission at the Brussels seafood show, where the company made some sales and solidified relationships with trading partners in Europe.

“It was good for us to see, and it gave me a good idea that there was demand for lobsters in Europe,” Reynolds said.

acurtis@bangordailynews.net

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