Muhammad Tahir Lakhani Dubai (DTA) Biography – Shipping Industry UK, USA and Malaysia

Mr. Muhammad Tahir Lakhani is the MD and Chairman of Dubai Trading Agency (DTA) in Dubai and is associated with the Propeller Club of the US. He always promotes UAE as the global leader in maritime logistics and trade. He belongs to an established family from Karachi, Pakistan, and he was born on April 27, 1962. He was also associated with the UAE Shipping Association as the Vice-Chairman until 2019.

Mr. Muhammad Tahir Lakhani has been enthusiastic about sports since his early years, and he has been a professional tennis player. He earned many achievements at his age and played at the Davis Cup to represent Pakistan. One of his key achievements in sports was when he played tennis in Junior Wimbledon. Later on, he started his ship recycling business with his incredible experience.

He joined the shipping industry at a very early age. Mr. Tahir Lakhani worked at a ship recycling yard when he was in his 20s in Pakistan. Mr. Tahir worked with devotion in his ship recycling yard. His friend owned the recycling yard where he worked. He worked in 12-hr shifts for over three years on ships where he supervised the steel plates’ movements.

After making his foray into the shipping business, he moved to Dubai from Pakistan and started his own business. Mr. Lakhani settled in Dubai and started his vessel trading business in 1985. He was indulged in buying and selling ships on the recycling yards. Tahir Lakhani was the first who made the ‘cash purchase’ of ships to start his operations in Dubai. At the same time, he also organized Dubai’s first Green Recycling Conference in association with Tradewinds, the global leader in maritime media.

He acquired three VLCC Adriatic tankers and delivered the same to Pakistan’s breakers from international waters out of the UAE. He signed the biggest deal in ship demolition of that time. He was the first who was running a shipping business within a few years, and he was the world’s largest ‘cash buyer’ of ships till 1997. He traded in over 100 ships each year.

Considering the need for a global platform for his business, he moved to the UK with his family in 1999 to expand his business connections. Mr. Muhammad Tahir Lakhani Dubai became a UK citizen in 2009 and kept visiting Dubai regularly to grow his business till 2014 in both scale and volume.