Page 28 from: May 2015

Economic growth in the Middle East has provided a major

boost for scrap recycling and trading giant Sharif

Metals. But at the same time, growing prosperity

could be seen as one of the biggest threats to the

company given that its Sharjah headquarters in the

United Arab Emirates are slowly but surely being

eaten up by increasing urbanisation. ‘At some point

in time, we might have to pack our bags and rebuild

on the outskirts in what is now still open desert,’

says Sharif Metals’ co-owner and chairman.

Lunchtime at Sharif Metals International. A delicious fish meal has been served, which
I enjoy together with the company’s chairman

and one of the owners Salam Al Sharif, his

brother Monir Al Sharif and Salam’s son

Mahmoud. We sit in the basement of the com-

pany’s headquarters at Sharjah in the United

Arab Emirates (UAE). Comfortable couches

and a pool table to relax; dozens of family pic-

tures on the walls. This is Arab hospitality

mixed with a US sports bar atmosphere, the

latter being a reminder of the time when Salam

studied in Texas back in the 1980s. The entre-

preneur himself wears leather boots (‘I have ten

pairs of these’) and a cowboy hat. Living the

American Dream in the United Arab Emirates.

Sharif Metals is claimed to be one of the largest

privately-owned recycling companies in the

Middle East. Founded in 1963 in the Palestin-

ian city of Nablus by the late Abdul Salam Al

Sharif, Sharif Metals expanded into the Gulf

region, taken first to Kuwait by former chair-

man, the late Mahmoud Al Sharif.

Fully-equipped yards
Currently directed from the Sharjah main

office, Sharif Metals operates through a net-

work of 11 fully-equipped yards across the

Arabian peninsula, with locations in Kuwait,

the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon,

Egypt and Yemen. It serves customers across

the entire region as well as in India, Europe

and the Far East, and it employs more than

600 people, including 150 administrative and

trading staff.

Sharif Metals runs two car shredding plants,

three copper wire and cable granulators, sever-

al balers and briquetters, 10 scrap shears, 10

hydraulic material handlers, several wheel load-

ers, and numerous smaller loaders and forklift

T H E G U L F R E G I O N By Martijn Reintjes

A look inside Sharif Metals’ aluminium facility at Sa’jaa. Serving the Indian workers community

Sharif Metals

Swallowed up
by the big city

28 May 2015

RI 4-ME_Sharif Metals.indd 28 30-04-15 14:46