LVDI Marriott Shanghai

FAGORNEWS 2011
FAGOR PEOPLE
Nadeem Abdul Wahed
Middle East Branch Manager.
Q & A
FAGOR PEOPLE
When Nadeem joined Fagor Industrial fulltime
in 2005, with the mission of opening
FIME (Fagor Industrial Middle East) - the
division created to support clients in the
Arab Emirates and Middle East countries -
he became involved in a business which,
as he tells us, has never stopped growing
and which currently exports to 14 countries
in the Middle East, India and Eastern Africa.
FIME was set up in the free trade area of the
Emirate of Sharjah, with the idea of re-exporting
to other countries. The United Arab
Emirates has the advantage of being the
Arabian Gulf’s most important trade centre
and the point for redistribution of the goods
to other countries in the area. Nadeem tells
us about his years of non-stop activity, ceaseless
but fascinating.
How long have you worked for Fagor
Industrial?
My experience with Fagor Industrial spans
over ten years now: it began in 2001, when
I was working as the Sales and Marketing
Manager for Fagor’s distributor in Yemen, in
charge of both the household appliances
division and the division corresponding to
Fagor Industrial. In 2005, Plácido González,
the Fagor Industrial’s former Export Manager,
asked me if I would like to create and
manage a new division, the Middle East division,
in the United Arab Emirates. And I’ve
been here ever since.
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What memories do you have of those
years?
My most important and strongest memory is
of when I arrived in the United Arab Emirates
and started setting up the Fagor Industrial
project in-situ, right from the first day and the
very first steps.
What were those early beginnings like?
The Export Manager and I visited many free
trade zone in the United Arab Emirates - as
you know, this is the Middle East’s leading
country for free trade zone and investor backing
- until we finally opted to set up in the
Sharjah International Airport free trade area.
Some of our authorised distributors had
their offices in Sharjah and Dubai, so this
was the ideal location for us. In just a short
time we succeeded in registering the brand,
obtaining our business licence and opening
our offices in the place where we decided
our distribution centre was to be based.
TOGETHER WE EVOLVE
“Fagor industrial is known for the
value for money.”
What do you remember about your first
clients?
Most of all, I have an excellent memory of
the Fagor distributors who were already
working directly with our factory in Oñati in
Guipúzcoa, Europe, as right from the start
they gave us a great welcome and a lot of
help, and that’s been the case right up until
today. And we always try to do the same,
offering them all our support.
Which areas and countries is Fagor
Industrial currently offering its services
to?
Well, since we set up the centre, our aim has
been to offer our services to all the countries
in this region, which apart from the Emirates
were Oman, Qatar, Bahrein, Kuwait, Saudi
Arabia, Irak, Yemen, Jordan, Iran, and Pakistan,
India, Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Mauritius,
together with East African countries
like Sudan, Eritrea, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya
and Tanzania, plus the recent addition of
South Africa.
#04 / FEBRUARY 2011