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29 March 2024

UAE retail major in expansion mode; hires 3,500 employees

Published
By Waheed Abbas

As part of its expansion plan, Emke Group’s retail division LuLu Group International will open 14 stores in Dubai and Northern Emirates in the next two year and has recruited 3,500 employees for its upcoming projects across the Gulf region, a company executive said.

Salim MA, Director of LuLu Group International, told Emirates 24l7 in a recent interview that the UAE retail major will open seven stores in the GCC this year.

“We recently opened 110th store in Sharjah. Now our expansion plan, especially in Dubai and Northern Emirates, will be around 14 stores within the next two years,” he said. “In Saudi, we have big expansion plans. We’ll be opening three stores in Saudi and two in UAE this year – one each in Al Ain and Abu Dhabi. There will be also be one in Qatar and one in Oman.”

He said the two-storey Al Ain Mall, spread over more than 700,000 square feet area, should be ready by mid-2014 while the Abu Dhabi project should open by the end of this year. The Abu Dhabi mall is spread over 200,000 square feet.

The retailer has 110 stores in 31 countries, taking retail space of 22.5 million square feet, according to its website.

Commenting on recruitment, Salim said the retailer had recruited 3,000 to 3,500 employees already for the upcoming projects in the region. Around 800 people will be required for the two UAE malls opening this year, he added.

“We always believe in taking people in advance and train them in our stores. We already have extra staff for, may be, five stores because we bring staff and training them way before opening the stores. Recently we have had recruitment and those people will be coming for our future expansion,” Salim added. The group currently employs around 31,500 people of 37 nationalities.

Commenting on the retailer’s foray into Far East Asia, he said the group has obtained licence and work is underway on the project.

Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said earlier this month that Lulu Group would open its first hypermarket in Kuala Lumpur this year before unveiling another five at different locations in the next few years. He said the group had agreed to invest $200 million (Dh734 million) on its hypermarkets in Malaysia.