01/11/2003
Al-Akhbar Newspaper 2003/NOVEMBER /01
Small industries had placed many countries at the top along with Japan and the “Asian Tigers” of Southeast Asia standing as the best evidence of this. However, projects in Egypt have encountered touch condition and have experienced grave problems. Although the country’s approach is to support these industries so that they can become stimulus for development; these industries have floundered in the face of financing obstacles, banking measures and granting high-interest loans, along with problems of marketing, customs, and taxes. The industry that consist of one-million workers has become on a knife-edge looking for a survivor, but the small project owners presented a prescription for the torments of these projects and demanded setting up a national agency to be in charge of facilitating measures and marketing their products. They also demanded a banking entity be founded to assume the responsibility of financing these industries with special privileges. What would small project owners and industry experts say in order to save the future products and protect one million personnel from losses? (Available in Arabic – German in PDF )
Small industries had placed many countries at the top along with Japan and the “Asian Tigers” of Southeast Asia standing as the best evidence of this. However, projects in Egypt have encountered touch condition and have experienced grave problems. Although the country’s approach is to support these industries so that they can become stimulus for development; these industries have floundered in the face of financing obstacles, banking measures and granting high-interest loans, along with problems of marketing, customs, and taxes. The industry that consist of one-million workers has become on a knife-edge looking for a survivor, but the small project owners presented a prescription for the torments of these projects and demanded setting up a national agency to be in charge of facilitating measures and marketing their products. They also demanded a banking entity be founded to assume the responsibility of financing these industries with special privileges. What would small project owners and industry experts say in order to save the future products and protect one million personnel from losses? Dr Mahmud al-Husseni, a small project owner, said that one of the most significant problems he and other owners of workshops and small industries are currently faced with is the issue of funding. Funding is essential as they rebelled against the government jobs and preferred private business. “We have to borrow from banks, but the interest rate is high, making it hard to repay especially following the recession that hit the markets”, he said, stressing the importance of granting young owners of projects preferential privileges in receiving loan for lesser interest rates so that their activity would not shut down especially with the liberation of the exchange rate. Dr. Nader Riad, head of the small and medium-sized industries committee at the Egyptian Federation of Industries, said there is a range of strategic objectives behind advancing the small and medium-sized industries that could be realized through a number of approaches. The first approach is economic, which deals with the fair distribution of national income represented in supporting the population activity in all governorates and increasing the national savings. This would raise the rates of national investment, curb inflation, and increase demand for the use of local raw materials. It would also elevate the quality of raw materials, lessening waste by putting them to industrial use as well as contributing to offsetting the balance of payments by replacing imported materials with the local materials, he said.