A recipe for young people.. A business trip that transforms "Mohamed Al-Abbar" from an employee into an economy icon

The founder of Emaar Properties, the retail platform Noon and a series of successful companies, the prominent Emirati economist and entrepreneur Mohammed Alabbar summed up the journey of his struggle and success in three words, the right time, the right place, and the right opportunity, and that a business trip that took seven years, changed the course of His life from an employee to a prominent entrepreneur.

Al-Abbar said during an open dialogue at the Dubai Police platform at the "LETS TALK", in the presence of the Commander-in-Chief of Dubai Police, Lieutenant-General Abdullah Khalifa Al-Marri, that "the three most difficult challenges he faced in his long career were the difficult competition with leading government real estate institutions, and the economic crisis that It hit the world in 2008, and the beginning of the (Covid-19) pandemic “during the past year,” stressing that he overcame it thanks to a lesson he learned from His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, when he told him: “You must know that working in the economy is as volatile as night and day. Summer and winter, there are days of good, growth and profit, and difficult days. So you have to save in the first to beat the second.”

He added in an interview from the heart, conducted with him by the journalist Marwan Al-Hel, that his success story "is summed up in three words: the right time, the right place, and the right opportunity," noting that "these factors, when available to a person with passion, desire and will in a country like the UAE, will achieve The same success.

He pointed out that he started his life as a bank employee in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, then he was offered to travel to Singapore, but he refused because he had just returned from the United States, but his boss insisted on his travel, realizing that this is in the interest of the work and the interest of Al-Abbar himself, stressing that he condemns Thanks to this man who is jealous of his workplace and his employees.

He indicated that he spent seven years in Singapore, during which he learned a lot despite the difficulties he faced at the time, and when he returned, he decided to transfer the experience of the major real estate institutions that he found there to the UAE, and founded the "Emaar" company without having sufficient experience in this field, but he resisted the pitfalls that faced him, until the company grew in light of the economic growth witnessed by Dubai and the country thanks to its wise leadership.

He explained that he faced many challenges in his economic career, but “three of them were very difficult, the first being intense competition with leading and strong government institutions. This has motivated us to offer the best prices and maintain the quality of implementation and customer service. The second challenge is the economic crisis of 2008, when global markets plummeted. As for the third, it represented the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, when airports were closed, and movement restrictions were imposed,” noting that “the Dubai Mall’s monthly profits only were estimated at about 300 million dirhams, before the pandemic. And it was difficult to lose this amount per month, so we were patient with the tenants, taking into account the health conditions, until life came to life again, thanks to the wonderful policies in dealing with the pandemic by our leadership and the concerned authorities.

Al-Abbar continued, "Had it not been for (Emaar) to be a strong institution, it would not have been able to overcome these challenges," noting that he had learned from His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum that there are "good days and bad days" and I must be prepared.

Follow our latest local and sports news and the latest political and economic developments via Google news