Home ›› 16 Oct 2022 ›› Business Connect
Of the 42 years of his life, the last 25 years have been spent working and growing the family business while running dozens of charity organisations that help thousands of people around the country.
For Mohammad Sarwar Alam, a third-generation member of the famous Mostafa-Hakim Family of Kattali, Chattogram, life has always been about family, running its business, politics and serving the people through social services at the same time — a matter of pride and honour for him.
At present, Mostafa Hakim Group, managed by Sarwar and his family members, is one of the top investors in Bangladesh’s steel industry and the best supplier of construction materials in Chattogram.
The rising businessman, who studied business here and also graduated from Victoria University in Australia, is one of the directors of this group of industries, which has a yearly turnover of around Tk 5,500 crore.
The time-honoured family once had a variety of businesses but now they are more focused on the steel and ship breaking and recycling industries. They have also expanded into construction materials production, including cement and bricks, real estate, oxygen, textiles, importing and distribution.
This has been possible because of the contributions of the family’s third-generation members, who are led by Sarwar.
Mostafa-Hakim Family started the family business as a construction firm in the sixties founded by late Abdul Hakim. His sons carried out his dream and expanded into the ship demolition and recycling business in 1984.
The Mostafa Hakim Group, founded on a commitment to quality, timeliness and value, currently has around 5,000 employees working in 15 different companies under it.
Recovering from Covid shock
The headquarters of the group, which has been a popular brand since Bangladesh’s independence, is in the port city’s Dewan Hat area.
The Business Post recently met and spoke to Sarwar at his office here. During the interview, he opened up about his family’s business, political ambitions and future goals as well as the challenges the industries are facing, including the Covid-19 pandemic, ongoing economic crisis and dollar shortage and overvaluations.
“First of all, the economic collapse caused by the epidemic has been a huge lesson for the businessmen of this generation. Those who are handling it well will survive and will also go far,” he said.
“The pandemic’s impact has been much bigger than the recession in 2007-08. The economy has actually been in recession since 2020. After a short interval, that has continued in 2021 as well. This year, when everything was returning to normal, the dollar crisis hit us hard as a result of the Russia-Ukraine war, which shocked the global economy.
“Since February 2022, the taka’s value against the dollar has fallen by 20 per cent. The loss is more severe for us since we are an import-dependent country,” he said.
Sarwar continued, “The dollar crisis has affected big businesses the most. The manufacturing sector will suffer most because it’s largely import-dependent.”
The economy has largely overcome the Covid crisis but the steps taken or pledged by the government still need to be properly implemented, especially in terms of incentives, he said.
Bank loan interest rates were halved during the pandemic but it has increased again. The present 9 per cent interest rate needs to be reduced to 4-5 per cent and it will bring back some comfort in businesses, he added.
Sarwar said the government’s measures to stabilize the dollar price are working. “Dollar’s value has been stable for the past month and is currently standing at Tk 103-105. This is good.”
He also pointed out that in the long run, many entrepreneurs may lose their businesses because of the recession that is going on for three consecutive years. This will make economic recovery very difficult.
“We have not completely overcome the shock of the pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war. However, many countries have done it already. We should look at how they coped and succeeded,” he stressed.
Port capacity needs improvement
Businesses under the Mostafa-Hakim Group export and import products through the Chattogram Port regularly and because of that, Sarwar keeps an eye on everything that’s going on here.
“The port’s infrastructure has not improved much in recent years but the workload has increased in various ways. This is roughly consistent with the country’s economic progress but more needs to be done in this regard,” he said.
Explaining the situation, he said that large ships cannot berth at the jetties now because of the port channel’s low depth. “The lighter ships have to get the goods from the mother vessel and then unload them at the port, from where they are sent to their destinations. If goods can be directly unloaded from the mother vessel, the cost will reduce a lot.”
In addition to infrastructure development, the port needs more modern equipment and there is an opportunity to simplify the unloading process. The customs clearance process of imported and exported goods should also be faster, he said.
Sarwar added that there are now many private inland container depots (ICDs) that are also working like ports. “But their tariff is very high. There should be a similar structure between the charges at the port and private ICDs.”
The proposed Chattogram Bay terminal, once it’s built, will be able to berth large ships and bring massive changes. It should be constructed as soon as possible, he opined.
The offices of some port and shipping-related organisations need to be shifted from Dhaka to Chattogram so that the related tasks can be addressed quickly and easily. The shipping minister and secretary should have offices in the port city so that they can work here during certain times of the week or month, he said.
Pointing out that there is still a lack of a business-friendly environment in Chattogram, he said that more parking spaces and terminals are needed here because a huge number of goods carrying vehicles arrive in Chattogram.
“Vehicles can carry a maximum of 13 tonnes of goods on the Dhaka-Chattogram Highway. Other highways in the country do not have this restriction. This should be lifted immediately. Traders in Chattogram are being discriminated,” he added.
One-third of profit goes to social welfare
Mostafa-Hakim Group runs 88 charity organisations, including a foundation, two colleges, schools, mosques, madrasas, orphanages and clinics, which serve the people in various ways.
How do they manage to fund so many charities? “Simple, the profits,” said Sarwar. “We share our business profits with society’s underprivileged. One of our policies is sharing one-third of the profits on charity and social activities.”
“As part of our regular activities, every Ramadan we donate special gifts including commodities to 25,000 families, in which around 1,00,000 people are the beneficiaries. We donate special gift packs among the underprivileged during the Durga Puja as well,” he added.
The group sends relief through its teams to those who need it wherever there is a humanitarian crisis, he said. “The group also sent relief to the victims of the floods in Sylhet and Sunamganj this year. We provided cooked food to at least 8,000 people every day for 10 consecutive days through the army.”
“In short, we help those who need it as best we can,” he stressed.
Amid the Covid pandemic, Mostafa Hakim Welfare Foundation distributed food, medicine and oxygen cylinders to people in many districts around the country. “In addition to donating thousands of cylinders for free, we have four oxygen factories that operated throughout the pandemic and maintained supply,” Sarwar said.
“Apart from mosques and madrassas, our foundation also donates to various temples and religious communities during their festivals,” he added.
He said, “Also, a third of our business profits are donated among our relatives and people from the lower middle-class group, who usually do not talk about their problems openly and do not come under the public-private aid networks.”
Interest in politics
The members of the Mostafa-Hakim Family have always been involved in politics for the past few decades.
Sarwar’s father Mohammad Manjur Alam served as the mayor of Chattogram City Corporation (CCC) from 2010 to 2015. Before that, he was elected multiple times and served as a councillor of the city corporation.
Manjur is now a bit detached from politics. But another member of the family, Sarwar’s cousin Didarul Alam is currently an Awami League lawmaker representing the Chattogram-4 constituency (Sitakunda upazila) in parliament.
The whole family had supported Manjur when Manjur contested for the mayoral post on the BNP’s ticket. Sarwar was one of his election managers. They also banded together when Didarul ran for office in 2014 and are still his strong supporters.
Explaining their purpose for their involvement in the political arena, Sarwar said, “We have only one reason: serve the people. We believe in public service. If one has a political position and responsibility, one gets more opportunities to connect with and serve more people. It’s not possible otherwise.”
Sarwar also got the rare opportunity to meet the top leaders of the country’s two main political parties — Awami League chief and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and BNP Chairperson and former prime minister Khaleda Zia.
Sarwar and his father Manjur met Khaleda in 2009 before the CCC election. Sarwar also met Sheikh Hasina in 2010 during Manjur’s swearing-in ceremony after he was elected mayor.
Several charity organisations of the Mostafa-Hakim Group are named after different family members of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
About his political aspirations, Sarwar said, “Although now I am not directly associated with any political party, we are a completely politically minded family. Some of our family members have various political responsibilities and we simultaneously play our role in their support.”
“But if I get any proposal to take any political position and responsibility, I will highly consider it,” he added.
Future goals
Currently, Mostafa Hakim Group is one of the top local ship recyclers in the country with eight recycling yards. But they are also now manufacturers and suppliers of key construction materials.
Apart from this, the group have some commodities business but it’s not much, Sarwar said.
“At one time, we used to import food items extensively. I was involved in this business when I went to study in Australia. Although we now do it on a limited scale, we still have plans to expand and do it on a larger scale in future,” he said.
However, the commodities business has changed. Now many big companies have entered the food business with huge capital. If someone new wants to start such a business, they would also have to gather that type of capital, he added.
Sarwar said, “Our group now has a strong marketing network across the country. This network will help us to do more business in future.
“We are also considering investments in the IT and agriculture sectors. We will take decisions on this soon.”
