Aer Rianta International Middle East (ARIME) is having a record sales year in 2005, with ?tremendous? performances from Beirut Duty Free, Bahrain Duty Free and Qatar Duty Free, according to ARI Director General Eamon Foley.

He said all three operations were delivering impressive sales increases and ARIME is now exploring opportunities to expand the retail space at Bahrain Airport, having benefited from the extension to its arrivals shop earlier in the year.
?At Qatar the airport is just experiencing staggering growth and that is being driven by the growth of Qatar Airways and they have proven to be very, very successful at opening up new routes. That is having a positive impact on our business.?
ARIME extended its management contract with Qatar Duty Free for another three years last March and has built the business from scratch to a sales turnover which The Business now estimates at around $70m. ARIME has also made good recent progress in Egypt with its consultancy agreement with Egyptair.
Foley said: ?That is going well and we?ve opened up a couple of shops already and we are well down the planning stages of designing and working with the airport authorities to improve their facilities and the offer.?Foley said that if the current pattern of sales growth continues, then ARIME?s turnover will exceed that of ARI?s total Russian and CIS businesses this year.