Celebrating milestones: Dr Dhananjay Datar receives top leadership honour in Middle East

Dr Dhananjay Datar aka ‘Masala King’, who is the chairman and managing director of Al Adil Trading, was recently honoured by Forbes Middle East as one of the top Indian business leaders who are making an impact in the Middle East for the year 2019. Dr Datar was ranked 27th in the list.

He received this award from H E Navdeep Singh Suri, Indian Ambassador to the UAE and Sheikh Mohammed Bin Maktoum Bin Juma Al Maktoum.

“This is a quadruple celebration moment for me. We have recently opened our Al Adil’s 41st super store in Lynx towers at Dubai Silicon Oasis. The inauguration of the facility took place at the hands of actress Parineeti Chopra in the presence of Maiyadah Tawfeeq Ramadan, associate manager at Dubai Silicon Oasis,” Datar said.


“Another reason for our family to rejoice was because the previous day marked the silver jubilee of my wedding anniversary and I have also received the long-term gold visa for 10 years by the UAE authorities recently,” said Datar. In fact, he is the only Maharashtrian to have been given this privilege. “I will always remain grateful to my wife Vandana, who stood firmly beside me in the ups and downs of my life all these years. She has made my life complete and content,” Datar said.

Al Adil Trading has been instrumental in bringing 9,000 Indian products to the UAE. It has a network of 41 supermarkets, two flour mills and two spices factories in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah and Ajman and a branch of Mumbai Export Division in the name of Masala King Exports (India) Pvt Ltd in Mumbai. Recently, new outlets have been set up at Oman and Bahrain. The company has also diversified into import and export with trade lines in the US, Canada, Tanzania, Kenya, Switzerland, Italy and Eritrea as well as Kuwait, Oman and the UAE.