Based in Vienna, Austria, the Vimpex Group of companies has been at the forefront of the paper industry, distributing its products to the Arab world for over a century, while the Kuzbari family has been at the heart of operations driving sales and products to enable the company to become the largest paper supplier in the Arab world.

With its headquarters in Austria, Vimpex also has eight factories in the Middle East including Cairo, Beirut, Damascus, Jeddah, Riyadh, Dammam, Dubai and Safat in Kuwait as well as presence all over the world. In Dubai, Vimpex has already announced plans to open a major logistics warehouse facility to support its regional branches.

Kuzbari has also been very active in his native Syria where the government is now embracing a series of public-private partnerships. The Deir Ez-Zour paper factory, whose management was contracted out to Vimpex, is a key event in its new policy and was the first example of 100% private management being contracted out for a 100% publicly-owned factory.

The deal stretches back 12 years, when Kuzbari won the bid to run the factory. Everything was on track, until the then prime minister, Mahmoud Zoubi, stipulated among the favourable import, tax, and human resources conditions set out in the contract, that the paper should be processed from wood.

A large forest was planted near the Al Furat dam for this purpose, in disregard of the fact that the Deir Ez-Zour plant was made to process straw. Vimpex refused to touch the deal as it stood, and factory production was left to stagnate through the 1990s. Fast forward 10 years and the government turned to Kuzbari once again, and despite labour fears from trade unions, management was once again handed over to Vimpex on the recommendation of the World Bank.