DUSHANBE, April 13, Asia-Plus - An official five-day visit of President Emomali Rahmon to the United Arab Emirates will conclude today afternoon and Rahmon is expected to return home today evening.  

Yesterday, President Rahmon visited the port Jabal Ali, which is one of the known free economic zones in the Dubai Emirate, presidential press service said.  Tajik head of state familiarized himself with activity of the Dubai Ports World Company, which has links with largest ports throughout the world.

Dubai Ports World (DP World) is a company owned by the government of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.  DP Terminals was founded in 1999 and DP World was created by a merger between the Dubai Ports Authority and an international business, DPI Terminals. 

President Rahmon held talks with DP World Director General Ahmad bin Salaem (phonetically spelled).  He welcomed President Rahmon’s decision to create free economic zones in Tajikistan.  According to presidential press service, 120,000 people now work with DP World and its total capital amounts to $250 billion.    

During his stay in the free economic zone Jabal Ali, Tajik president visited the tea-processing company Lipton and Dubai’s industrial flagship and one of world’s largest single site aluminum smelters Dubai Aluminum (DUBAL).  The smelter with 3,650 workers annually produces 850,000 tons of primary aluminum, which is primarily exported to Japan.   

Rahmon held talks with Mr. Ahmed Al Tayer, Vice-Chairman, DUBAL.  During the meeting it was noted that that world’s largest aluminum smelter is being constructed in Abu Dhabi.  This enterprise is projected to produce 1.5 million tons of aluminum per year.  In the coming 4-5 years, annual production of aluminum in the United Arab Emirates is expected to reach 2.45 million tons.     

President Rahmon noted that what he had seen is impressive. “It is an incredible industrial site, with excellent state-of-the-art technology.  The management runs the entire operation extremely professionally and to the highest international standards.  The business operation at DUBAL is clearly based on a very successful model," He said.  

In the course of the talks the sides vowed to promote establishment of cooperation between the Dubai and Tajik aluminum smelters for raising professionalism of Tajik specialists and intrducing the state-of-ther-art technologies at Tajik Aluminum Company (foremrly TadAZ).