When Ahmed Bin Sulayem was approached to steer Dubai’s commodities trade in the early 2000s, his initial thought was to say no.
“I didn’t want to be in the public sector, where my family was quite prominent and there were a lot of expectations,” the 46-year-old recalls in an interview with Rapaport Magazine. “It doesn’t seem so when you look at my programs, but I’m an introvert.”
Still, “you have to adapt,” he says, acknowledging his current public persona.
Many credit Bin Sulayem with being the driving force behind both the success of the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC) and the growing prominence of the Dubai Diamond Exchange (DDE). He remains CEO and chairman of the former, as well as chairman of the latter and of the Dubai Gold & Commodities Exchange (DGCX). Under his watch, the DMCC has grown to over 25,000 companies and claims to represent 7% of the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) gross domestic product, along with 15% of its foreign direct investment.
To accommodate its growth, the DMCC opened its new headquarters last year in Uptown Tower, an 81-story building that includes commercial and residential space, as well as a hotel. It recently broke ground on phase two of the project, which will add two adjacent buildings. Those complement the 63-floor Almas Tower — the DMCC’s former home and the DDE’s current base of operations.
Pressing the advantage
Almas’s opening in 2008 was a pivoting point for Bin Sulayem. Global demand for commercial property plummeted during the financial crisis that year, just as he went on a roadshow to promote the project — but that proved to be an advantage.
“The fact that property rates crashed was an angle for us,” he says. “We told them, you can afford to live in Dubai, to have senior management close to Almas, and that this is an opportunity because the market will swing up again.”
Almas soon sold out. Most of the major diamond companies signed up. Dubai’s diamond activity was already growing at that point, with a rough trade of around $5.2 billion and polished worth some $12 billion, according to Dubai Customs data for 2008.
But there was lingering doubt about the role Dubai could play in the diamond market. “Perception was a problem 15 and 10 years ago,” he acknowledges. “That has changed, but it’s still something I address at every opportunity.”
For example, there’s the notion that Dubai has taken a leading position solely because of its favorable tax policy, he observes. “I don’t like that. When you see an auction in our facility, we’re adding value.”
Speaking up
Despite his claims of being an introvert, Bin Sulayem isn’t shy about defending Dubai or expressing his opinion in the public arena. At the 2017 Dubai Diamond Conference, he called out the Federal Tax Authority’s decision to introduce value-added tax (VAT) on diamond and gold wholesale transactions. His opposition to the move, which he argued would “destroy the diamond trade here,” led the government to retract the decision and introduce a refund mechanism for those VAT payments.
His forum of choice today is social media, where he showcases the networking he does with diplomats, business managers, religious leaders, sports personalities and members of the trade. His high visibility — he has some 42,000 followers on Instagram and 79,000 on LinkedIn — helps raise the DMCC’s profile, he reasons.
Social media is also a platform for airing his views — a way “to make sure your target market understands your perspective,” he says. That includes refuting attacks on Dubai “with much more energy” than his antagonists have, and advocating for the Kimberley Process (KP), which the UAE is chairing for a second year under his leadership.
Global influence
As KP chair, he’s been a vocal opponent of the Group of Seven (G7) initiative to create nodes for certifying rough diamonds’ origins as part of its efforts to restrict Russian supply.
“We’re concerned the G7 is developing a G7 KP certificate,” explains Bin Sulayem, arguing that the existing KP framework of 60 worldwide offices already provides “the perfect solution” for verifying rough diamonds and doesn’t require a G7-sanctioned system on top of it. “African countries should not need permission from the G7 to certify their own production.”
That the UAE is heading the KP for a second time — it previously held the position in 2016 — further shows both Dubai’s and Bin Sulayem’s growing influence in the diamond world. But he doesn’t take the city’s position for granted. Being number one means nothing if you’re not growing, he asserts.
“I know what happened in the last few years is amazing, but we’re not satisfied and leave nothing to chance,” he states. “I want to make sure Dubai becomes a better hub for Africa, India and the international community. We’re still hungry.”
Main image: Ahmed Bin Sulayem. (Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC))
