Gulf Advantage Automobiles (GAA), a joint venture between Saudi Arabia's Al Baazei and Suhail Bahwan Automobiles, has been appointed as exclusive distributors of Renault passenger cars and light commercial vehicles across the Kingdom in an agreement singed on Saturday. Renault's executive vice president for Asia and Africa, Katsumi Nakamura, GAA chairman Ahmad Bahwan and Abdulla Baazei, managing director of Saleh Al Baazei & Sons attended the signing ceremony. Representing 75 years of combined industry experience, GAA is the amalgamation of two leaders in the automotive sector. Saudi's Al Baazei brings over 35 years of local automotive experience while Suhail Bahwan Automobiles, a part of the multibillion dollar multinational Suhail Bahwan Group, has over 40 years of industry experience across the region and North Africa. Renault is a leading brand representing over 100 years of automotive excellence. In 1999, Renault bought a 44.3 percent stake in Nissan forging a powerful alliance. Today the Renault-Nissan alliance forms the fourth largest automotive group in the world. Renowned for its cutting edge designs, Renault is a pioneer when it comes to safety and is the only manufacturer that has 12 of its models certified with 5-stars from Euro NCAP. Reinforcing its commitment and the importance of Saudi Arabia, Renault and GAA have a significant investment plan of more than SR100 million including three brand new showrooms in Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam, eight state-of-the-art service centers and a network of 25 spare part outlets. Nakamura said the distributorship brings a renewed approach to ensure optimum levels of quality, expertise and service are delivered to customers, matching Renault's ambitious plans for the King”The GCC has been highlighted as a key growth area as part of Renault's global strategy and in particular Saudi Arabia. In Gulf Advantage Automobiles we have found the right partner and with a renewed focus, we look forward to bringing not only the right product line-up and quality but also a new and refreshed customer oriented focus. With these objectives in mind, we aim to double car sales volumes in the first year of operations itself,” he added. Ahmad Bahwan, chairman of GAA added:” We have ambitious plans for the Kingdom and are looking at rapidly expanding our reach within Saudi Arabia. Our new showrooms are due to open shortly and we are aiming towards doubling our service centres and facilities within the first twelve months providing more convenience to customers. Reports said car sales in Saudi Arabia are expected to jump over 30 percent from around 676,000 in 2010 to 880,000 in 2013.
