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Success story of a Chinese businessman in Dubai

He moved to Dubai when he was 32 and worked as a cook at Tai Chi restaurant at then newly-opened Wafi Mall.

When Chinese expat Wan Wen Hui, 51, first came to Dubai in 2001, he said he could barely complete a sentence in English and obviously, he could not speak Arabic. But he saw an opportunity and he was determined to succeed in a thriving city, which is 6,000 kilometres away from his hometown in China.
Less than two decades later and through sheer hard work, Wan was able to put up several successful business ventures, including supplying gardening and landscape materials and a couple of automobile service workshops.
His wife (Hong Ling Wu) and children now call Dubai their second home and he is also actively promoting UAE-China trade relations as chairman of the Jiangxi Business Council.
Wan said he could attribute his success to the open-country policy of the UAE plus the long-held Chinese business mantra, bo di to xiao - which means gaining little income but selling more quantity is equivalent to gainful business.
Aside from his own companies, Wan is also busy in coordinating the affairs of the Jiangxi Business Council. He said more Chinese investors are expected to come to the UAE as a result of the official state visit of the His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, to China on Sunday.
"Both countries are actively promoting 'Invest in the UAE'. We can expect more investors, even from the provinces of China, to come and put up their businesses here in the UAE," Wan told Khaleej Times on Monday.
Wan said when he and his fellow Chinese entrepreneur started putting up businesses in the UAE back in the early 2000s, they mostly ventured in trading and supplying construction materials. "But now we are talking about medium and large-scale manufacturing," he noted.
From a humble beginning
Wan's business success story has a common theme among Chinese entrepreneurs in Dubai. He came from Jiangxi, a province in southeast China that boasts of pastoral landscape of rice paddies, rivers and mountains.
He moved to Dubai when he was 32 and worked as a cook at Tai Chi restaurant at then newly-opened Wafi Mall.
After doing the rounds in the kitchen for two years, Wan quit and made his first business venture by bringing to Dubai two 40-cubic foot containers full of chinaware.
Wan proudly said: "The profit I earned was equivalent to my one-year salary working as a chef. With the money I earned, I realised that I can be a successful businessman in Dubai."
His next venture was in the landscape material business. He partnered with Dubai Garden Centre and supplied gardening and landscape materials to hundreds of clients.
Then Wan put up a plastic flowerpot factory in China and supplied materials to more clients. Wan diversified his business and put up two automobile service workshops in Al Quoz.
He said: "I have three simple business rules: First, be honest with your clients; second, give them your best customer service so they will become loyal to you; and third, follow 'bo di to xiao' - sell with little profit but go for more quantity."
He added that he was able to succeed because Dubai is very welcoming. "When I first came here, I used an electronic translator (now there is an app for automatic translation) and I learned English 'slowly, slowly'. I asked people who I talked to write on a piece of paper the English words, and I studied them," Wan said.
"Although language is still a problem for the Chinese expats, Dubai is very accommodating and that to me is the key to my success," he concluded.
angel@khaleejtimes.com