The Fruit of Cooperation in Egypt's Desert

By Hu Yifeng
[Egypt] Nasser Abdel Aal

The journey to the desert from Cairo, capital of Egypt, offers an unvaried landscape dotted by date palm trees. But once you reach the edge of the Red Sea 120 kilometers east, there is something more vibrant.

A towering obelisk rises from the middle of the road, separating the world just traveled from the distinctly different world that lies ahead. While the bleak desert sprawls behind, the area ahead is green with trees. This is the China-Egypt TEDA Suez Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone, where the wide and even asphalt roads are flanked by tall palm and date palm trees, offering a rare cool shade in the scorching sun. The yellow-tinged office buildings, apartments, hotels, supermarkets and banks in the zone have clusters of trees breaking out in white and pink flowers.

A Friend of Enterprises

Inside the zone, Mike, the manager of an electrical appliance factory, is striding out of the office hall, carrying a stack of files full of data. He has just met Mr. Li, a commissioner of the company that has developed the zone and operates it. At the meeting he completed the export declaration procedure for his company’s products. He has had similar meetings with Li in the past and they have always been smooth.

The zone was ready in a little over 10 years with roads, water and power supplies, the drainage system, communication and other supporting facilities ready to go into operation. The neat rows of streets, buildings and factories and the regular flow of traffic give the high-tech industrial park a vibrant look. It is hard to imagine that this teeming oasis was once a barren expanse of yellow sand.

Mike has warm thoughts about Li. They have been friends for years. When his factory started in the zone, Li helped him through the formalities. Mike was impressed by the one-stop service, a trade facilitation system enabling international traders to complete all their regulatory requirements at one location. Li assured him that the zone was “investor-centered”. It not only provided factory and office buildings for enterprises but also facilitated their development. From inspections to signing contracts, from establishment to operation, from logistics to security, the zone provided all-round services. All the enterprises needed to do was to concentrate on their business.

Mike found they did what they promised. When his factory was under construction, the zone development company set up several teams to provide different services. The business team assisted in company registration and equipment procurement, the construction team saw coordination of construction procedures, the human resources team handled personnel transfer, employment recruitment and the interpretation of employment policies while the finance team provided consultations on taxation, loans, customs clearance and other related procedures.

Production and operation then went on smoothly. Still, Mike had some doubt. After the factory started in full swing, would the workers find life in this remote desert area boring and monotonous and quit? To dispel his doubt, Li took him on a tour of the residential facilities in the zone. Mike found apartments, hotels, supermarkets, banks, restaurants, stadiums, gyms, libraries and more. There was even a large theme park, a rarity in entire Egypt! This was almost a mini but comprehensive society in itself. All this finally set his mind at rest.


Visitors leave the TEDA Theme Park after an enjoyable outing.

With the efficient service of the cooperation zone, the construction of Mike’s factory progressed smoothly. The zone development company actively interacted with the local government to speed up the approval process. Finally, the plant started operation ahead of schedule.

As Mike leaves, he sees others hurrying to the office hall he has just left and he feels solidarity with them. From his own experience, he knows that their companies will also develop rapidly, with the help of the comprehensive platform provided by the zone.

The Parasol Tree and Enterprises

There is a Chinese saying that if you plant the parasol tree, the golden phoenix will come. The parasol is a deciduous tree from China. The economic cooperation zone is like a parasol tree planted in the desert that has attracted a multitude of golden phoenixes and created a golden business card for foreign investors.

Not many Egyptians were familiar with fiberglass earlier. It is a chemical material whose raw materials have to be extracted from natural rock. Egypt abounds in quartz stones, kaolin, limestone and other raw materials needed for fiberglass and had a good foundation to develop its fiberglass industry. However, before the arrival of China’s Jushi Co., Ltd., not many local enterprises mined these ores.


Work in progress in an EJC workshop

Jushi is one of the world’s leading companies in the fiberglass industry. In 2014, its Egypt Jushi Company (EJC) was set up in the zone. The EJC has grown rapidly, increasing its annual production capacity from 80,000 tons to 200,000 tons. Of this, 90 percent is exported. Egypt has become the world’s fifth largest fiberglass producer and the largest in Africa.

This is just a part of the story.

When people from the EJC visited the raw material suppliers, they found that one company had abundant raw materials but they did not meet the requirements. The EJC then sent its technicians to the company to provide on-site technical guidance and help them establish a quality management system to improve supply quality and production efficiency. Today, the company’s production capacity has nearly doubled and it has become a leading mining company in Cairo.

Looking back to the cooperation with the EJC, the official in charge of the company said they were fortunate: “Since we began cooperation, the EJC has done much for us in terms of business and quality management, helping us improve. I hope the cooperation continues.”

Like the raw material supplier, there are many more beneficiaries among the local companies. Due to the huge demand for raw materials, the EJC has developed 13 local suppliers and its local purchases are now worth EGP200 million (US$12.26 million) per year.

In addition, the EJC has also promoted the agglomeration and transformation of the downstream companies.

The Future Pipe Industries S.A.E. in Cairo principally designs and manufactures fiberglass pipe systems. Earlier, it needed to import the fiberglass. Now it purchases it from the EJC at much lower prices and inventory costs.

After Jushi, China Hengshi Foundation Company came to Egypt to build a factory to mainly produce and sell fiberglass fabrics for wind power. It promoted the development of Egyptian high-tech industries.

There are many such golden phoenixes in the zone. They have integrated themselves into the local life and become an important force in the economic development of Egypt.

An Engine to Realize Egyptian Dreams

The economic zone gives importance to training local talents. It regularly conducts training and organizes top local employees and managers to visit China, nurturing talents for the park’s development and construction management. The localization of staff in the zone is more than 90 percent and the localization of middle and senior-level management personnel more than 80 percent. It has become an incubator of local aspirations.

Nahla Emad, the general manager of the zone development company, has much to say about it. In the second year of the zone’s construction, she learned that it was recruiting and she came to apply. The working conditions at the zone were poor at that time and it was thought that being a woman, she might not be able to endure the hardship. So each time she applied, the company rejected her. Still she continued to apply, preparing her resume with care and trying hard to wrangle an interview.

Finally, the zone authorities were swayed by her perseverance and her wish to work there came true. Her Chinese colleagues readily shared their efficient work methods and skills with her and she was sent to China for further training, which boosted her capability.

Ten years later, she became the zone development company’s general manager from an ordinary staffer. “In the zone, Egyptians and Chinese are treated equally. They have good cooperation and the Egyptian staff have a good opportunity for promotion. Everyone has opportunities for personal development,” she said.

Nahla’s case is not an exceptional one in the cooperation zone. The young Egyptians are enthusiastic, cheerful and industrious. They have witnessed the cooperation zone’s development and its contribution to Egypt’s development. And they themselves have grown at the same time.


Egyptian pyramids

We Are All Habibis

In the course of its construction and development, the cooperation zone has struck up a close friendship with the locals and they have become habibis, which means dear friends in Arabic.

In January 2011, the domestic turmoil in Egypt plunged Suez City into chaos, and the companies in the cooperation zone faced danger. However, the Bedouins living near it became their guardian angels. The nomadic tribe quietly came and encircled the zone protectively. For thousands of years, these brave and fiercely independent tribesmen had lived in the area and when the cooperation zone was coming up, they became friends with the people inside. At the time of the crisis, they set up checkpoints at the entry points and manned them. Dressed in their traditional flowing white tunics and keffiyeh, the traditional checkered headscarves, they were a formidable sight. They stopped the mobs from attacking the cooperation zone and protected their Chinese habibis.

When the zone faced the threat of its food and water supplies running out, a vehicle loaded with bread and drinking water miraculously arrived from Suez City. The driver of the car was an employee of the cooperation zone called Essam.

Essam started working in the cooperation zone soon after its establishment and it became his home. When the city was in turmoil and all shops were closed, his first thought was the safety of his colleagues far away. He did his best to get jars of water and bread and risked driving through turbulent Suez City to bring the supplies to his colleagues. Later, he was awarded the “cooperation zone hero” medal.

An emotional Essam said: “Though I got married at the age of 26, I couldn’t afford my own house even when I was nearly 40. It was the cooperation zone that enabled me to buy a house and raise four children. The people here are my friends and my family. I am ready to protect them with my own life.”


The China-Egypt TEDA Suez Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone in the initial phase

During the entire period of unrest, the joint efforts of the Chinese and Egyptians ensured that the zone operated as usual and its personnel and their property were unscathed.

The cooperation zone is involved in local philanthropic activities. It has donated money to build mosques, purchases teaching facilities for local schools and contributes to student funds. It has also sponsored welfare homes for orphans and the Second Egypt-China University Art Talents Competition.

During the holy months of Ramadan in recent years, the cooperation zone and other organizations co-hosted the Ramadan Charity programs and distributed Ramadan gifts among Egyptian orphans. In 2016, the TEDA Charity Fund was officially launched. Its first donation of EGP200,000 went to a local heart rescue foundation to help children with heart problems. In 2017, its staff visited a charitable children’s hospital, taking with them gifts for the children and donating money.


The China-Egypt TEDA Suez Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone after expansion

China and Egypt had close cultural links as early as the time of the Song and Yuan dynasties (960-1368) in China. With time, the ties have deepened. The cooperation zone on the bank of the Suez Canal and its results have accelerated the realization of more and more Egyptians’ dreams, giving a new vitality to Egypt, the cradle of one of the oldest civilizations in the world.

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Project Overview

The China-Egypt TEDA Suez Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone is a joint venture funded by Tianjin TEDA Investment Holding Co., Ltd. and the China-Africa Development Fund.

The zone has an area of 7.34 sq km. In the initial phase, it was 1.34 sq km. Today, the zone has an accumulative investment of about US$109 million. Its first four leading industries were new building materials, petroleum equipment, electrical equipment and machinery manufacturing. The 6-sq-km expansion is being done in three phases of 2 sq km each. The total planned investment is US$230 million.

The first phase of infrastructure construction has been completed with a total accumulative investment of US$63 million. Seven enterprises including Guangzhou Dayun Motorcycle Co., Ltd. and Xiamen Yanjian New Material Co., Ltd. are operating from here. The zone is now seeking investment for developing the second phase.