Abbas is a fascinating person with a determined personality. He was one of the political prisoners in the 90s. He was released in ’96 with the only thing on his mind was to find a job and restart his life.
He realised that he missed out on education, so the alternatives left to him were bravery and hard work to make it on his own. He joined Mina Sulman as a labourer for 3 months, then left to Bahrain Pack where he worked for 8 months at BD90 a month. He left that company to join a carpentry firm from which he fell in love with that trade and within a year he was able to start his own carpentry shop with a friend.
The partnership disintegrated after a year so back he went to the marketplace to get a job where he was made redundant in 6 months due to the company losing its main supply contract. He elected to restart his foray into private business with his brother and brother-in-law this time in aluminium, which he says is very similar to carpentry. His partners left within a couple of years having made their money so he was left on his own to peruse his vision with determination.
He heard of the premier EDB program to help small and medium businesses which provided them with business consultancy through a friend and was lucky enough to be selected out of the first batch of 10. His company – Quality Aluminium – was the smallest of that batch.
Being on that program was the main turning point in his professional life. Since then, he increased his business to include 3 aluminium factories with approximately 40 staff and a turnover of over BD1 million annually.
