Mahmoud Elaraby

 He was born in 1932 in the village of Abu Raqabah, Ashmoun district, Menoufia governorate. His father was a rented farmer who cultivated land that was  not his property. He was sent to Al-Kuttab at the age of three, so he learned the Qur’an, and did not enroll in education because of his father’s economic conditions. 

He had a penchant for trade since his childhood. As a young child, he sold children’s toys on the terrace of their house in the village on the feast, saving the asset and the profit, giving it to his half-brother, so he would buy something else for him. In the Moski area, the shift from worker to employer began. The man did not forget the right of the partner and pursued the poor, so he had a known right to the beggar and the deprived in his money.

 The man obtained a power of attorney for major Japanese companies and dreamed of transforming from a man of commerce to a man of industry, and his ambition was to open the largest number of homes by increasing the number of workers with him and moved The activity is for places other than Al-Moski to extend to Badran Island, Shubra and Port Said, and factories are built in Banha, then expand to occupy the largest part of the industrial area in Quesna in Menoufia, and the wheel turns and with the same industrial and commercial line, the charitable line goes, and The man was assisted by a group of trustworthy and experienced people, led by his brother, Hajj Muhammad al-Arabi, and a group of men loyal to the company. 

In 1975, Al-Arabi visited Japan, and saw the factories of the Toshiba company, which he obtained his power of attorney, so he asked them to establish a factory in Egypt, and he had land on the Egypt-Alexandria agricultural road. In 1982 an industrial complex was built in Banha. Over the following decades, his partnerships with Japanese manufacturers of electronic devices and others increased to become an agent for their brands such as Sony, Seiko, NEC, and Hitachi. Currently, the "Al-Arabi Group" sales have reached more than 400 products in 22 countries, and the group's distribution and service network consists of more than 2,800 sales centers and more than 180 after-sales service centers.

Haji Mahmoud al-Arabi was awarded the highest Japanese decoration (the Order of the Rising Sun) by the Japanese Emperor Akihito in May 2009. For his role in supporting and improving Egyptian-Japanese economic relations, he was awarded the Hirofumi Nakasone Medal (in Japanese).

He died on Thursday, September 9, 2021 AD, corresponding to Safar 2, 1443 AH, at the age of 89.