Muscat, Oman, October, 20, 2008: Oman's sensational new shopping mall, Qurum City Centre, will generate up to 500 jobs for Omani nationals, with more to follow when the mall becomes fully operational.

Ibrahim Al Qasmi, spokesperson for Qurum City Centre, made the bold announcement today as preparations were well underway for the official opening of the Muscat-based mall.

Qurum City Centre, which will open in just a few days, will be home to more than 75 retail outlets creating many hundreds of jobs. Indeed, the mall's anchor store Carrefour, will be employing close to 200 Omanis in various managerial as well as well as administrative capacities.

Ibrahim Al Qasmi, said: "Close to 300 Omanis have been employed so far and, the number is likely to rise to 500 as more outlets open. With the completion of the 20,600 square meters gross leasable area (GLA) Qurum City Centre, will provide even more job opportunities for the young Omani population.

"With the government upgrading education, improving intensive technical and vocational training and, providing access to higher education to a larger percentage of the population, the Omani workforce is emerging as a well qualified one, ready to take on the opportunities being provided by both the private and public sectors."

Salim bin Nasser, Director General at the Ministry of Manpower, said "City Centre is one of the leading companies employing the national workforce and the stores operating at the centre are very committed to Omanization. This will raise the percentage of Omanization".

"Definitely the new Qurum City Centre will provide more job opportunities for the national workforce and this comes from the principle of real partnership between the government and the private sector establishments in replacing the expatriates' workforce with national workforce."

"We would like to mention that City Centre allowed the ministry to open a new recruitment office to which the centre can provide all services related to recruitment of the national workforce looking for a job, it provides also other services that citizens want to know through the operating system and to serve all the establishments operating inside the centre. The number of Omani nationals working in Carrefour is 432, working at all levels. At the high level jobs, the Omanization percentage reached 55% and we hope that the new Qurum City Centre participates in pushing Omanization up and achieving its policies," he added.

Al Qasmi added that Qurum City Centre has dedicated teams, which have been trained in providing efficient customer service. They will be positioned throughout the mall to guide shoppers and visitors as they make their way around Oman's newest shopping destination.

By the end of this month, visitors will be invited to journey through the spectacular mall and watch, as week by week, month by month retailers begin to open their stores to help Qurum City Centre become the new hub in downtown Qurum.

-Ends-

About MAF Shopping Malls:
MAF Shopping Malls is the region's leading shopping mall developer with an established network of operating centres in the Middle East and North Africa. The company is part of MAF Properties, one of the major operating subsidiaries of the Majid Al Futtaim Group. It has seven operating centres totaling over 500,000 square metres of GLA, including four centres in UAE, two in Egypt and one in Oman. MAF Shopping Malls deals with over a 1,200 retailers across the globe and its centres draw combined foot traffic of over 90 million shoppers annually.

MAF Shopping Malls' world-class shopping centres have revolutionised the retail industry over the past 15 years with breakthrough developments such as Ski Dubai, the first indoor Ski Resort, Mall of the Emirates, the first shopping resort in the Middle East and the popular City Centre franchise (which can be found in Dubai, Sharjah and Ajman) that has been exported across the region to Egypt (Maadi and Alexandria), Oman (Muscat), the upcoming Bahrain City Centre and Mirdif City Centre.

Media Contact information: 
For more information, please call:
Ahmed Hamdy
Marketing Manager
Muscat City Centre
Ph: +968 24558888
Fax: +968 24558320
Email: Ahmed.Hamdy@maf.ae
 
Media Inquiries:
Saloni Suri / Shaddad Al Musalmy
ASDA'A Burson-Marsteller
Oman, Muscat
Tel: +968 24562762
Fax: +968 24562763
s.suri@asdaa.com

© Press Release 2008