Flammable cladding was flagged as one of the possible causes of the fire at the Address Downtown Dubai on December 31 2015
The UAE’s largest manufacturer of building cladding panels has halted production on flammable plastic-core cladding, according to reports.
Shaji Ul Mulk, chairman of Mulk Holdings, of which Alubond U.S.A Metal Composites is the flagship brand, told Gulf News his firm would end production of the controversial products after a series of tower fires, including the New Year's Eve blaze at The Address Downtown Dubai.
It comes ahead of the release of a revised UAE Fire and Life Safety Code.
“This is a decision where we need to take the lead,” he said. “Eventually the code will ban them [inferior panels] anyway. The delay of the code doesn’t mean we need to wait.”
Mulk said his firm would halt all exports of the inferior non-fire-rated panels to 24 countries.
Alubond commands up to 50 percent of the cladding market in the country, Mulk said. The company will now concentrate on producing fire-resistant A2 aluminium panels that can withstand temperatures of 332 degrees C.
Since January 2012, at least 11 towers in the UAE have burst into flames.
Major General Rashid Al Matroushi, director of Dubai Civil Defence, told the Fire Safety Technology Forum in April that the code revisions were expected in late April but delayed pending final changes.
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