(MENAFN - Khaleej Times) More than 30,000 world leaders, industry experts and technology innovators are expected to attend the sixth World Future Energy Summit, or WFES, from January 15-17 in Abu Dhabi, firmly establishing it as the world's foremost event for the renewable energy and environment industry.
The expected registrations for WFES 2013, the centrepiece of Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week, will surpass this year's figure of 26,200 attendees representing 137 countries.
Naji El Haddad, Show director of WFES 2013, said the World Future Energy Summit, hosted by Masdar, Abu Dhabi's renewable energy company, has witnessed remarkable growth since the inaugural event in 2008 which attracted over 5,000 heads of state, government officials, business leaders, environmentalists and exhibitors.
"The World Future Energy Summit has created enormous global interest since the first event five years ago with a record 623 companies from 37 nations exhibiting at this year's event. Around 690 media representatives reported on the outcomes of the summit, generating over 44 million worth of coverage and 9,877 mentions in the international media."
"The global importance of WFES was heightened with the attendance of the Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, the Prime Minister of South Korea, Kim Kwang-sik and the President of the United Nations General Assembly at the 2012 summit," said El Haddad.
"It was also significant that the Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban ki-Moon, chose WFES to announce 2012 as the UN's Year of Sustainable Energy for All."
"We are building on this success for WFES 2103 with a number of new exhibition initiatives, and already the registrations are far in excess of where they were at the same time for this year's event. Importantly, the number of official delegations is expected to exceed 150 so we are again hoping for many real and tangible outcomes from next year's summit," he said.
In just five years, the World Future Energy Summit has evolved into a truly global event that enables policy creators and business decision makers to come together to find solutions to the world's energy challenges.
Abu Dhabi has long championed the cause of renewable energy as a means of sustainably generating the power needs of oil and gas-producing regions like the Middle East, and it has taken its quest internationally with the creation of the World Future Energy Summit in 2008.
Abu Dhabi's eminent position was further underlined when it was selected as the permanent host city for the International Renewal Energy Agency (IRENA).
The sixth World Future Energy Summit will be central to a number of high-profile events during Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week from 13-17 January 2013.
Titled 'Powering Future Energy Innovation', WFES 2013 will be co-located with the first International Water Summit, and will also be the host venue for the biennial International Renewable Energy Conference in Abu Dhabi (ADIREC) which coincides with the third annual session of the Assembly of IRENA.
