Journey Of Jalal H. Jamal

About half a century ago, Jalal H. Jamal, A young garments manufacturer in Dar es Salaam, identified a gap in the Tanzanian market: there was no one manufacturing and distributing ball point pens. It wouldn’t be the first time Mr. Jamal pursued a new line of Business: he had begun his working life trading lubricants, and them moved into garments. But setting up a new industry was no easy feat: private sector initiatives faced a multitude of challenges in a newly independent country experimenting with socialist policies. Yet he persisted, eventually securing the machinery and materials riquired to build a factory in the nation’s capital. Thus, Union Trust found its earliest beginnings in the 1960s.

Two decades later, as Tanzania liberrazied, Mr. Jamal’s pioneering spirit endured. As well as trading, he became involved in the coca cola bottling business, and at the beginning of the 1990s he entered mineral water production and plastics manufacturing.

Mr. Jamal was a self-made enterpreneur. The company’s portfolio began with garments, and now spans banks, buildings and natural resources. Yet, Union Trust observes the same fundamental values today that made its founder’s vision a success fifty years ago, adapting to changes in the economy and identifying and quickly responding to local needs.