According to Saatchi & Saatchi EMEA officials, the withdrawal from the network aims at implementing the agency's wider plan for the Greater Middle East.

Elias Ashkar, Saatchi & Saatchi EMEA’s CEO said that the company plans to open a fully-owned office in Beirut that will serve the entire Levant region.

The office will be called Saatchi & Saatchi Levant and will be operational at the end of the first quarter of 2010, he said.

Ashkar said that the Beirut office will be the company’s pool of talent and creativity. He said that the entire region is witnessing a commercial boom and “the local advertising industry will be the model for other countries.”