Indian businessmen in UAE vow to learn Arabic

DUBAI: Leading Indian businessmen in the UAEwho are members of the Indian Business Leaders Forum (IBLF) have started a unique initiative to learn Arabic as well as understand the UAE culture with a view to assimilate themselves locally. Under the leadership of IBLF Vice-President and ITL Cosmos Executive Vice-Chairman Ram Buxani, the businessmen have said this initiative will help the Indian business community integrate with the local culture. This follows the forum's pledge at a round table on 'Strategic Planning of Indian Business & Industry' held recently, where all the business leaders unanimously agreed to learn the Arabic language and also converse in the Arabic language. The other important area that they discussed was on 'localisation' and how Indian companies based in the UAE can create more employment opportunities for UAE nationals in their respective enterprises. The members of IBLF agreed to work hand-in-hand with the federal government in the UAE on localisation, also called 'Emiratisation', and also look at these efforts in a more positive way. "This is one of the many efforts taken by Indian business leaders to integrate and understand the local community and it will go a long way to bridge the business ties more firmly," IBLF President Sudesh K Aggarwal said. The Arabic orientation program, which is spread over a period of six months, is being held exclusively for members of the IBLF with the support of Skyline University College (SKU), one of the premier educational institutions in the UAE and a team of faculty from SKU. Jasjiv Singh Kandhari, First Vice-President (Generation Next Business Leaders), IBLF, said there is nothing like learning a language from the grassroot. According to him, having been in the UAE for 35 years, his ambition was to learn the spoken form of Arabic within six months and converse fluently with the Arab community as he travels within the GCC and various other countries of the Arab League.