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Al-Ahram Weekly 11 - 17 March 1999 Issue No. 420 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 11 - 17 March 1999 Issue No. 420
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Focus Special Features Travel Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters The 'new face' of business
By Fatemah FaragIt is the fair to top all fairs, with 2,000 foreign companies from 52 countries and 2,500 Egyptian companies taking part. Impressive, especially when compared with last year's turnout: 500 foreign and 1,200 national companies. The 32nd Cairo International Trade Fair was inaugurated by President Hosni Mubarak on Tuesday morning.
"We worked all year on the preparations," explained Ahdab Fawzi, technical manager at the General Organisation for International Exhibitions and Fairs. "You will notice several additions: air-conditioning in all halls, information, business and media centres, and daily seminars."
She is busy taking care of last-minute arrangements. "Why is Egyptian spelt with an 'o'? Everyone knows it is an 'a'." She corrects one poster but the banner going up behind the podium carries the wrong spelling. Oh well, these are minor details.
Outside, the weather is sunny, the grass a crisp green and the flowers in bloom. Amid the rhapsody of colour stands a violet and baby-pink van, one of the items being showcased by the Nasr factory.
But this is the site of serious business, as we are reminded at the business centre by Walid Mahmoud, representing the Egyptian International Trade Point, an arm of the Ministry of Trade and Supply. "We offer second-by-second information from all over the world on investment opportunities. At the fair we participate in finalising deals and offer country profiles and marketing studies. Also, we prepared CDs marketing Egyptian products."
Time to take a look around. As I walk into one hall, I almost get run over by a runaway tractor involved in finalising some stalls. Better choose a safer option, which lands me in Hall Two, where Egyptian companies display their products. The Eastern Tobacco company -- a personal favourite -- has a clay dummy of a man reading Al-Ahram and smoking a Cleopatra. My kind of place. I am told by company representative Ayman Galal, when he has a minute free from his mobile phone, that the company already exports cigarettes to all Arab countries, not to mention Germany, Bulgaria and Serbia.
"The fair is an opportunity to show off our new products, for example our Port Said menthol cigarettes, as well as the products that are only for export, like the Verona cigarillos." There are cigars sticking out of their metal tubes, a wide range of me'asel (shisha tobacco) as well as long, thin, amber cigarettes, wrapped in pink, orange, purple and aqua-green paper. "Those, however, are only for show and special order," he adds.
The next stall sports rather uninteresting aluminum sheets and the displays go on. Before I leave, my eye catches a big sign in red exclaiming: "NOW! Egyptian steel pipes at international markets." Good for us.
A few halls down the road is the Korean section, exhibiting kitchens, chemically-bleached hair plastered to hair clasps, kitchen utensils.
Further down is a productless stall, just posters of beautiful beaches and greenery. It is the Portuguese stand. "We participated in 1993, but did not find anything to stimulate us to come back," says Carlos Juliao languidly, adding however: "We now think the conditions are starting to become more favourable and our government has a new approach, which includes a scheme to promote Portuguese investment in Egypt." Although the business has not really started, he noted that "during this period we have been encouraged by the goodwill to solve whatever problems there are."
Everyone at the fair seems to confirm the impression that there is a "new face" to the world of business transactions in Egypt. "Everyone says that procedures to invest in Egypt are tedious. It is our business to take this opportunity to explain to them that this is no longer so; that the new economic policy of the government has been successful, that the face of management has changed and that we are a great success," Mahmoud said.
