Dubai, UAE: Ever since the Dubai government announced the programme to retrofit 30,000 buildings in Dubai by 2030, a few voices in the industry have suggested that manufacturers and suppliers offering to lease out expensive equipment to those could encourage people to take up private-sector retrofit projects as it decreases the capital expenditure.

However, Raphael Khlat, CEO of Faisal Jassim Group, says that there is a lack of locally produced products that can be said, “This is Dubai Standard”. To succeed in this, he says that there is need to consider generating strong brands for contracting out of Dubai. Despite the Dubai Municipality taking up standardisation efforts, Khalt says that Dubai has not met the standards of the United States and Europe, and we need to depend on them for technological solutions.

“The technology is available today and is not very difficult to achieve,” he points out. “We are not talking of controls-related solutions, which are sophisticated. So Dubai can set up standards, instead of importing equipment. Once we achieve that level of strength, we can see brands going out of Dubai. The big question is, ‘What is stopping us from going to European countries?’ Yes, there is protectionism there, but fundamentally, we don’t have standards that match theirs. So we need to make massive investments in setting up testing facilities. If I have to test an FCU, I have to go outside.”

Suggesting a solution, Khlat says that Dubai can tap on the perception that Dubai has high quality and this could be utilised to produce strong brands. In fact, he adds that Dubai Municipality could start using locally manufactured products in their own facilities to encourage internal production.