Walid Arafah over politieke situatie Egypte en gevolgen voor AGF-export
What’s happened in Egypt?
Shortly Egypt is a land of 7000 years culture. With a moderate Islamic background which is making the character of Egypt different than any other Arab Land. People of Egypt are open and easy excepting different Nationalities, cultures and religions. After the standing of 25 January 2011 the Muslim Brotherhood as the only organized group were elected with a slightly majority of 51% and they promised too much but they after one year high jacked Egypt to change everything to become one of their Islamic Emirate Dream (this ideology does not fit neither to most of Egyptian way of thinking and living style nor to the moderate way of excepting the others they believe in) add to that the very special character of the Egyptian society where Muslims never divided to sonnies and Shias like in Iraq or Iran and the Christians-Muslim relation are very strong and neighbors from both sides are nearly a family member. The Muslim Brotherhood had just been interested in controlling the ministry’s and the governmental sector with their people who in most of the cases have no experience in management … all this led to a huge collapse of the country over all sectors.
What an Egyptian faced in the last 12 months was really too much.
24/7 Water and electricity became not possible, rows of 2 and 3 Km in Petrol stations and much more of that no security because they destroyed the Police and tried to put their agents inside, they allowed 3000 very radical Islamic members to camp and train in Sinai against the well of the Egyptians to use them as a joker card against the oppositions and against Israel even we have a peace agreement with Israel. They allowed the Hamas Militants to smuggle weapons through more than a 250 border tunnels to offer them a stock of weapons helping them in terrorist operations against civilians of Israel in case of any future different mind of view.
Egypt lost the truism-which is a quarter of the Land Revenue- with yearly revenue of 45 Milliards LE (5 Milliards Euro), the Factories closed and the land moved from a developed land to a poor land. The indications of the popularity of that Brotherhood Islamic government clearly went down to 23% and the people find no way to take it any more with a government ignoring them and not allowing any other party to share the planning of 92 Million needs and future.
The solution was the Military as the only folk loyal institute
The Military tried since 9 months to invite all Egyptian parties to come to an agreement and work together and all excepted and the government refused… in the end Millions went to the street to peacefully demonstrate and ask the brotherhood to leave in this the only who helps is the trusted military of Egypt … and they did it . it was not a military putsch… it was the wish of Egypt and the Egyptians folk .a request to help to get rid of a radical organization will destroy there country.
Very important here to be sure that from my own experience, it will take some weeks to 3 months where we will find a troubles coming from the pre Moursi - militant – starting from a demonstration’s ending with violence to attacks on Military, police and civilians. We should remember always that their radical kind of thinking allows them to harm and even kills others whom could just think different than how they are thinking. This kind of jihadists are the terror itself and defeating them should be understood and getting the support of us in Europe. Terrorism and human rights was and will be always a big conflict where too much people couldn’t understand or sometimes use in a wrong way which could effect in taking a country from Friendly country to another category to be classified as a supporter of terrorism.
After a very difficult year for the economy in Egypt and a very heavy hit for nearly all sectors specially truism under a government with nearly no experience and no experts, things started to move again to take a positive curse. The stock option’s market today 04.07.13 reached a historical level moving 7.2 % with a profit of 23 Milliard Egyptian pounds... a promising start after the return to the write way but,
The opportunities for investments are really more than enough but to attract the investors stability and security are needed. What we saw in the Last 2 days is letting us feeling good that this will be the case in the coming time … the police is working with full capacity and very motivated. The military is helping but not fully involved in operations … they are there in the streets to assist in case of matters related to national security especially in a very sensitive moment like now. And the most important factor is the Egyptians they are very optimistic and fully concentrated on one target which is getting back to the development way and working harder to recover from heavy effects of 2, 5 years of problems.
Through the last 2 and half years the sector of export had been -touched – from the events and demonstrations of ports … add to that the shortage of diesel and sometimes safety on highways. All this led to less trade exchange chances where some of the cargo lines reduced or changed their scheduled plans and added new ports to make it profitable to go on with Egyptian ports. This made the way longer and the sailing days more than a fresh product could take. More than that other lines canceled Alexandria, Damietta and Port Said completely from plane. Till the end of 2011 a trip of container from Alexandria to Rotterdam took 7 to max. 9 days with Yang Meng, since this carrier stopped Alex – Rotterdam trip the exporter of Fresh fruits /veg. have just a short transit trip of 8 days through Italian or Slovenian ports and a truck connection trip to NL/ Ger. That’s really very expensive solution (3 times x normal trip cost) because the option of Alex- Rotterdam or Port Said –Rotterdam is taking 13:18 days which is a very long time. This long trip is suitable for oranges, potatoes and dry vegetables and fruit but that is not suitable for the majority of Egyptian fresh products with a short shelf time like spring onions, grapes, fresh garlic and green beans. So the result of all that was more expenses and more cost price which is automatically reflected consumer. So what is the expectation? It could only become better.
From all this inputs we come to one conclusion the export of fresh veg. and a fruit in Egypt is a solid sector in private hands and people in this sector are doing their best to let it going on further even in very critical moments.
The development and expectance of foreigner experts and their safety well improve (many went back home last 2,5 years) this is very important in having a high standard product and safe food in Europe.
The local transport price will decrease especially the diesel cries started to ease.
The sea fright price will be stable or could very slightly increasing but the short and cheap direct liner to Rotterdam will be back again so it will save at least 25% in Total from the expenses of Italian Transit trips and will increase the revenue of all services related to Rotterdam. The chartered flights will very soon become more and this will decrease the -sometimes - very high air fright charge we faced last 2, 5 years. More than that we will deal with a strong economy in Egypt where short investments or seasonally investment will be a better chance for getting a cheaper product in Europe.
Me For
example last two years I because of the nun stable Egypt I didn’t farm myself some of the products so I bought it on the spot with the offered price effected with a diesel troubles, less security an ports demonstration’s this all led to a higher cost price of 30% and also automatically reflected in the Market sell (purchasing) price which also become more and I remember we published in March/April this year an article about the ridiculously increased Fresh Garlic prices
This year after studying the situation with partners I’m saving and farming myself. It’s always like that and many companies had their agents (usually) company native agent to do the same. It will be better for all Egyptians and Europeans related to the field of fresh Fruits and vegetables to work more together to achieve goals and targets now and not later… Egypt is ready now more than before for serious investors in our field.
Voor meer informatie:
Walid Arafah
Fruit Avenue
Fresh Park Venlo (Netherlands)
Venrayseweg 146 G-H
5928 RH Venlo/ Grubbenvorst
Tel: +31 777 114 333
www.fruitavenue.com