Mustafa Centre

Mustafa Centre is a shopping mall in Singapore, situated on Syed Alwi Road in the cultural district of Little India, within the planning area of Kallang. Within a walking distance from Farrer Park station and Jalan Besar station on the North East Line and Downtown Line, Mustafa Centre is a retail hub attracting many shoppers with its wide variety of products and services.

History
In 11 July 1973, Haji Mohamed Mustafa (1 February 1918 - 17 July 2001); and his cousin, Samsuddin (25 July 1925 - April 2011), commenced a wholesale business through a partnership known as Mohamed Mustafa & Samsuddin Co (“MMSC”). From 23 July 1973, MMSC’s branch would operate from 19 Campbell Lane. It mainly sold ready-made clothing and later expanded to sale of electronic items. In 1985, they moved their business to the ground floor of Serangoon Plaza.

In 1990, Mr Mustafa; his eldest son, Mustaq Ahmad; and Mr Samsuddin, founded Mohamed Mustafa and Samsudin Co Pte Ltd (MMSCPL),. As their business expanded, they bought a shophouse on Syed Alwi Road. Subsequently, they bought the neighboring units and decided to build a new shopping mall to house their business. The business expanded internationally, to Chennai, in 2000.

On 2 April 2020, Mustafa Centre was identified as one of the many COVID-19 clusters, with over 100 cases among the foreign workers' dormitories being attributed to it. It closed and underwent a disinfection thereafter, and was reopened partially on 6 May 2020, after Singapore authorities eased its preventive measures to contain the spread of the virus. Since the reopening, operating hours were adjusted to 9.30am - 11.30pm daily due to high electricity costs and rental costs, previously it was operated 24 hours. On 27 August 2020, Mustaq announced cost-cutting measures which affected the salaries of some workers, and non-renewal of work permits of its foreign workers. The company had also worked with various unions and government entities to help redeploy its excess workers resulting from the pandemic to other companies, avoiding the necessity of a retrenchment exercise.

Facilities
Mustafa Centre houses the Mustafa department store, which caters mainly to the budget market. The department store consists of two shopping centres: one retailing jewelry and household appliances and functioning as a supermarket, and the other selling a variety of other products such as books, DVDs, watches, electronic goods, footwear, toys, and clothing.

Mustafa Centre sells more than 300,000 items and provides many services such as foreign exchange and travel arrangements. In late 2011, Mustafa Centre opened a new rooftop restaurant named Kebabs ‘n Curries in its new wing. The restaurant serves a range of Asian dishes from 5 pm till 2 am daily.