Press Clippings
Media Coverege Abu-Ghazaleh Stresses Significance of Knowledge Economy.
Abu-Ghazaleh Stresses Significance of Knowledge Economy
07 May 2012
Media Coverage- Chairman of Talal Abu-Ghazaleh Organization takes part in 2nd Quality Conference.
Chairman of Talal Abu-Ghazaleh Organization takes part in 2nd Quality Conference
06 May 2012
Media Coverage- TAGSB and Konrad-Adenauer Hold “Commercial Arbitration” Regional Conference.
TAGSB and Konrad-Adenauer Hold “Commercial Arbitration” Regional Conference
01 May 2012
Media Coverage- Kuwaits Prime Minister Honors Talal Abu-Ghazaleh.
Kuwaits Prime Minister Honors Talal Abu-Ghazaleh
30 Apr 2012
Media Coverage- Dubai Customs Honors Abu-Ghazaleh Intellectual Property.
Dubai Customs Honors Abu-Ghazaleh Intellectual Property
25 Apr 2012
Global Services Coalition Media Release.
Global Services Coalition Media Release
05 Apr 2012
An interview with HE Dr. Talal Abu-Ghazaleh in Arabian Business.
This is translated from the interview conducted by the Arabian Business with HE Dr. Talal Abu-Ghazaleh on April 5, 2012 in Amman.
Launching the First Arabic Wikipedia in the Name of "TAGIPEDIA"
Arabian Business,
Thursday- April 5, 2012
Talal Abu-Ghazaleh Organization intends to create an Arabic Wikipedia in the name of "TAGIPEDIA" comprising 250,000 Arabic entries. “TAGIPEDIA” is expected to be announced within next September.
The Jordanian businessman, Talal Abu-Ghazaleh, told "Arabian Business" that "TAGIPEDIA" will be available free of charge to the general public. However, no one is allowed to add any information unless verified and monitored to ensure it is useful, harmless and inoffensive.
He also described Wikipedia as a "great project", however, he stated that it includes inaccurate information about the Arabs ".
Talal Abu-Ghazaleh attributed such defects to the lack of Arabic content invested in this project compared to the demographic magnitude in the Arab world, our culture, our language and the considerable Arabic content".
Moreover, he described certain information in "Wikipedia" about the Arab region as “inaccurate and incorrect", stressing that such information expresses personal perspectives.
He added that "we have realized that the only solution for this problem is by creating an Arabic Cyclopedia, which we have started working on more than a year and a half ago", clarifying that "the Arabic content in Wikipedia consists of 165,000 contents".
Abu-Ghazaleh stated that "we have gathered 250,000 Arabic information entries into the Arabic Wikipedia " TAGIPEDIA ", what is more, all the information is verified, reviewed and proved free of any non-useful materials.”
He continued, "We have included all facts into "TAGIPEDIA" as is in all Arabic fields and referred to relevant sources and we aspire to reach half million data entries." TAGIPEDIA "will be announced prior to the end of the current year or even before, perhaps within next September.”
He also added "We endeavor not to include any data unless it is complete to serve the purpose of making "TAGIPEDIA" a reference for all students and researchers abroad". Abu-Ghazaleh also indicated that "TAGIPEDIA" is an information repository that is totally different from (Wikipedia).
It is well known that Talal Abu-Ghazaleh is the Chairman and Founder of Talal Abu-Ghazaleh Organization, the largest Arab group of companies for professional services in the fields of accounting, management consulting, technology transfer, training, education, Intellectual Property, legal services, information technology, recruitment, translation, distribution and publishing.
http://arabic.arabianbusiness.com/business/technology/2012/apr/5/85614/
27 Mar 2012
Launch of the Arab Coalition of Service Industries (ASCI) in Doha in April .
AMMAN, March 27 (UPI) - The Arab Coalition of Service Industries (ASCI) will be launched in Doha, the capital of Qatar on April 19.
The Jordanian businessman, Talal Abu-Ghazaleh told United Press International on Tuesday, the World Trade Organization upon an invitation by the UNCTAD asked him to participate in arranging for a constituent meeting to announce the launch of the Arab Coalition of Service Industries (ASCI) in the Qatari capital, Doha, on April 19 with the participation of all concerned Arab governments, institutions and associations.
Abu-Ghazaleh added that "The objective of the Doha meeting is to develop inter-Arab trade in this essential sector which is easy to deal with in the era of electronic commerce and knowledge" pointing out that "most of the services do not need customs, borders or governmental approvals."
He believes that "the growth in the services sector is far better than the growth in commodities sector," describing the focus on the Arab Coalition of Service Industries (ASCI) as very important".
He called upon Arab bodies concerned with services, whether associations, unions or companies operating in the services sector to "participate in the Doha meeting to launch the Arab Coalition of Services to enhance the Arab economy and the inter-Arab relationships and trade."
Talal Abu-Ghazaleh expressed deep regret that "the Arab world is the only region where there is no such a coalition."
Talal Abu-Ghazaleh is the founder and Chairman of Talal Abu-Ghazaleh Organization, the largest group of Arab firms providing professional services in the areas of accounting, management consulting, technology transfer, training and education, intellectual property and legal services, information technology, employment, translation, publication and distribution.
This is translated from the interview conducted by the UPI with HE Dr. Talal Abu-Ghazaleh on March 27, 2012 in Amman.
United Press International, Inc. All rights reserved 2012.
22 Mar 2012
Unconventional Arab services group eyes global growth .
Wed Mar 21, 2012 2:00pm GMT
By Andrew Torchia
DUBAI, March 21 (Reuters) - One of the Arab world's most unusual and far-flung business empires was born among the booming economies of the oil-rich Gulf. Now it is counting on the Internet to fuel expansion around the globe.
Talal Abu-Ghazaleh, the 75-year-old former Palestinian refugee who founded the Talal Abu-Ghazaleh Organisation (TAG-Org) 4 0 years ago and still chairs it, says it has outgrown his original conception as an Arab multinational.
"I was thinking that as an Arab, I wanted to create something of which Arabs could be proud - the kind of international business which hadn't existed before," Abu-Ghazaleh said.
"As of today we're an international organisation, not an Arab organisation."
Established as an accounting firm in Kuwait in 1972, TAG-Org has become a complex web of companies providing business services across the region and further afield.
It operates in every Arab country and has over 70 offices worldwide, in countries including Afghanistan, China and the United States. Businesses range from management advisory services, intellectual property protection and legal assistance to educational consulting, information technology solutions and real estate management.
It is a rare example of a Middle East-based group which prospered by taking on Western multinationals in knowledge- and management-intensive businesses that they have traditionally dominated.
"When Talal Abu-Ghazaleh embarked on his private venture in Kuwait, there were only a few Arab accounting firms and it was mostly the big foreign names that dominated the Gulf," said Mifleh Aqel, a prominent consultant and former banker in Jordan.
"He managed to succeed against the odds and tough competition from the foreign accountancy firms that had the lion's share of the business in the Gulf."
Abu-Ghazaleh says he now plans to expand TAG-Org's business into sub-Saharan Africa, South America and Eastern Europe, offering web-based services to seek customers in areas where the group does not yet have a strong physical presence.
STRUCTURE
Born into a land-owning family in Jaffa, Abu-Ghazaleh fled advancing Israeli forces with his parents and moved to a village in southern Lebanon. He obtained a degree in business administration at the American University of Beirut on a United Nations scholarship.
He says he studied under street lights in Beirut because his living quarters did not have electricity, and worked as an English-Arabic translator and an accountant in a vegetable market before getting a private sector job in 1960 in Kuwait.
He remained there until Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990, which prompted him to move with TAG-Org's headquarters to the Jordanian capital, Amman. He has dual Jordanian and Canadian nationality.
Abu-Ghazaleh attributes part of his success to TAG-Org's unusual structure. Unlike many big accounting and law firms in the West, it is not a traditional partnership, he says; it is owned by a form of trust and partners share in the profits but not the equity. This makes it easier to replace top managers when necessary and to plan flexibly.
It has also helped TAG-Org expand in Arab and other countries where there are ownership limits for foreign investors; since TAG-Org does not have a traditional shareholding structure, it has been able to cope with such rules relatively easily, Abu-Ghazaleh said.
In the dominance of its founder and the participation of his family members - Abu-Ghazaleh's two sons and two daughters are all involved with TAG-Org - the group resembles a traditional Arab family business.
In other ways, it has a rigorous business culture that is rare in much of the region. Employees, more than 3,000 in total, must wear dark suits and ties - blazers and trousers are not allowed - and shirts must be white, light grey or light blue. Abu-Ghazaleh enforces a corporate style for writing memos.
Like many of its competitors, TAG-Org does not disclose revenues or profits, so judging its financial strengths and weaknesses is difficult. Abu-Ghazaleh says revenues have grown by at least 10 percent annually in recent years and that he aims for 20-25 percent growth this year.
"The global crisis has helped us in some areas," he said. "It has increased companies' demand for some of our services."
EXPANSION
Abu-Ghazaleh, who says he has no plans to reduce his role in management with age, predicts the "Arab Spring" uprisings that rocked the Middle East last year will benefit economies by removing entrenched official interests that blocked competition.
Before the Arab Spring, for example, TAG-Org could not offer an information technology training course in Egypt because "vested interests in the government" gave an effective monopoly to a competing programme from which they profited, he said.
It could not offer the service in Libya because people close to Saif Al-Islam, the son of toppled dictator Muammar Gaddafi, wanted to get involved. Now Abu-Ghazaleh sees opportunities to run the programme in both countries.
He also wants to use the Internet to expand TAG-Org's employment of online workers, in areas such as translation and web design. This could create jobs in Arab countries where social or security constraints have made employment difficult.
Most online work for TAG-Org in Saudi Arabia is done by women, Abu-Ghazaleh said; they can operate easily from home but it is hard for them to work in male-dominated offices. Women in the Palestinian Territories can also work online.
TAG-Org aims this year to launch a global "virtual university" for employees of corporations, using the Internet to teach vocational and business skills, languages and academic subjects. "In 20 years there will be no buildings for universities" as online education replaces them, Abu-Ghazaleh predicts.
Such ideas are being pursued by deep-pocketed companies around the world, and TAG-Org's expansion plans are likely to bring it into fiercer competition with Western multinationals defending markets that they dominate. It is unclear if the group's unusual structure will continue to benefit it as a fully global business.
But Abu-Ghazaleh rejects suggestions that he was a lucky beneficiary of the 1970s, when he launched his group as the Arab oil boom began and when most of his Western competitors had not yet entered the Gulf. He dismisses the idea that similar conglomerates could not be developed in the region today.
"People say times were easier then. That's not true - times are always difficult in some ways. What I did can be done again, if you have a capacity for hard work and the ability to bear suffering." (Additional reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi in Amman; Editing by Sami Aboudi)
© Thomson Reuters 2012 All rights reserved
http://af.reuters.com/article/egyptNews/idAFL6E8EI0U120120321?sp=true
21 Mar 2012
Unconventional Arab services group eyes global growth.
Media Coverage regarding Dr. Talal Abu-Ghazaleh's interview with Reuters.
