Office move setback to trade with Egypt

Press, 6 December 1977, Page 5

Office move setback to trade with Egypt

PA Wellington New Zealand’s growing trade ties with Egypt have recieved a setback with the news that a consortium of major coms panies will close the office it opened in Cairo a year ago because of “a failure to foster business.” The New Zealand Trade and Development Group will move its office to Dubai, in the Arabian Gulf. The group includes leading New Zealand companies such as Fletchers, Alex Harvey Industries, Feltex, and Borthwicks.

The news came three days after a New ZealandEgypt trade agreement was ratified in Wellington during a visit by the Egyptian Minister of Trade and Supply (Mr Abdel Fattah).

The group’s decision has been attacked by the Egyptian Ambassador to New Zealand (Dr Ihab Sorour). “The withdrawal reflects a lack of persistence on the part of conservative New Zealand exporters,” he said. “New Zealand needs imaginative and persistent salesmen on the spot who know something of the Middle East, its customs, and its people.”

The Minister of Overseas trade (Mr Talboys), who visited Cairo twice last vear — drawing up the latest trade agreement during one visit —

declined to comment on Dr Sorour’s remarks. As he understood the matter, the exporters were

not pulling out of the Middle East but were looking for a more suitable base. New Zealand’s recent contacts with Egypt were given a boost earlier this year when the Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon) stopped in Cairo on his way home from a European trip. He signed the trade agreement there.

New Zealand’s exports to Egypt have increased dramatically in recent years, mainly through sales of cheese and other dairy products. Egypt is keen to reduce the imbalance, which is heavily in New Zealand’s favour, and sell more to this country.

Mr Fattah said in Wellington last week that he was confident New Zealand could play an important part in Egypt’s current SUS2O.OOOM, five-year development plans Egypt’s 40M people offered an attractive market to New Zealand exporters, a point also raised by Dr Sorour, who said, “We wonder what market the group will find in Dubai in view of its small population.”

Dr Sorour said that the New Zealand group should have waited in Cairo another six months. “A new market is never easy to break into.” As the latest trade agreement was signed, the inaugural meeting of a joint trade commission of Egyptian and New Zealand officials, set up to promote trade and economic co-operation, was held in Wellington.

Ratifying the agreement, Mr Talboys said he was confident that scope existed for the devel» opment of two-way trade. But he warned that the development would not take place without a lot of hard work in identifying products.

It has also been announced that a New Zealand company has signed an agreement to build a cheese and milk-reconsti-tution plant in Egypt. The SBM plant will be a joint venture between the Mainzeal Construction Company, of Auckland, and the M.I.S.R. Foreign Trade Company, of Egypt. The plant will use New Zealand milk solids as raw material. The chairman of the Dairy Board (Mr A. L. Friis) said that the board had taken a close interest in the discussions between the Auckland group and the Egyptians. The board had developed a substantial trade with Egypt recently selling goods valued at SIOM in the last two years. “The prospects for growth are sound,’- 8 said Mr Friis.

The board itself had been examining the feasibility of establishing a plant in Egypt with the M.I.S.R. milk and food company, which controlled most of Egypt’s dairy trade.

Talks between the Auckland group and the board were proceeding.