Abdullah Hamed - Cairo
A sudden awakening The Egyptian government stalked the cotton crop, in an attempt to revive it again, by converting it into a high-value product that competes in global markets, where it announced work on producing a luxurious Egyptian shirt.
With the growth of cotton plantations decades ago, most of Egypt's cities were filled with gins, which either stopped or contracted with the deterioration of cotton cultivation known as white gold globally, and turned into centers for other activities, while gin-tower towers stood as gravestones of a late industry.
The Minister of Public Business Sector Hisham Tawfiq said in a telephone interview with one of the satellite channels, that the ministry aims to provide good cotton products, with a series of developed gins, in addition to developing three production centers to manufacture a luxury white shirt within two months, due to competition at the levels of long and long, to produce a product sold at about 400 dollars abroad, to suit the reputation of Egyptian cotton, instead of exporting raw cotton.
The minister's statements came after a meeting with President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, to follow up the latest developments in the reform and development of public business sector companies, especially at the level of spinning and weaving mills and plants.
The Holding Company for Cotton, Spinning and Weaving owns three international centers for exporting yarn, which are the spinning of Mahalla, Kafr el-Dawwar and Delta, and the results of the company's business for the past year showed a total revenue of 3.9 billion pounds, and a net loss of 2.9 billion pounds (the dollar equals 15.5 Egyptian pounds).
The plan to develop and restructure spinning and weaving companies exceeds 21 billion pounds, which includes modernizing cotton gins to achieve about three times the current production capacity, and merging 22 companies working in the spinning and weaving sector into only nine companies, with the aim of creating strong entities capable of converting to profitability, and merging nine Cotton companies in one company, bringing the total number of entities after the merger ten companies.
Khaled, who is an operating supervisor at a private textile factory, does not rule out that the government's plan is a declaration of the failure of the QIZ agreement, which stipulates the necessity of a percentage of the Israeli component in Egyptian textiles exported to the United States without customs.
The number of factories operating under the Qualified Industrial Zones Agreement was about 1,100, and the number decreased to only 200, which exports to the United States, according to official data.
Khaled expects that the ministry’s plan to market the model referred to in the minister’s statements will fail, as the cost of a shirt of the best quality cotton materials can never reach the exaggerated figure of $ 400, and therefore the price will not be a global competitor.
Khaled explains that the process of converting cotton into clothes goes through several stages, starting with collecting cotton from collecting areas, then reaching the gin (primitive manufacturing centers to clear cotton from seeds and impurities), then the stage of spinning the cotton, and finally weaving it in its final form.
The biggest crimes
The former peasant captain, Abd al-Rahman Shukri, considered the minister's remarks in anesthesia of public opinion, and resulted from what he described as the inability to provide any success in the economic field, especially in the agricultural sector, which is being badly destroyed.
In his speech to Al-Jazeera Net, Shukri demonstrated the lack of seriousness in the system in dealing with the agricultural file efficiently, which is the assignment of the Ministry of Agriculture to a bank official without agricultural expertise, despite the presence of thousands of professors of agricultural colleges and agricultural research centers, are excluded even from consulting on agricultural affairs.
Shukri stressed that the process of producing a luxurious shirt means encouraging good cotton cultivation, ginning and good manufacturing, while taking measures based on political awareness and awareness, which supports the farmer in his cultivation and facilitates his marketing.
He described the continued cultivation of short staple cotton as the biggest crime against agriculture in Egypt, despite the strong rejection from the scholars of the Cotton Research Institute, wondering about the role of the agricultural cooperative union, parliament and peasant unions.
The former peasant captain believes that "militarization is leading Egypt to ruin," noting that last year's cotton is stored in peasant homes, as well as a huge stock of the year before last that is still in stores, describing what is happening against cotton farmers as "a betrayal whose perpetrators must be tried."
For his part, Majdi Hamdan, deputy head of the Front party, considered that the statements of the Minister of Business Sector represent a distraction, because they are not studied, saying, "No external importer will buy textiles at such an exaggerated price."
In a post on Facebook, Hamdan confirmed that there are factories in Egypt that can manufacture and sell a very luxurious Egyptian shirt for only $ 50, and all that is required of the government to encourage the industry is to provide the most appropriate cotton for weaving operations as raw material after the seed and gin ranges between 45 to 50 kilograms.
And Egyptian exports of ready-made clothes during last October scored about 142.9 million dollars, compared to 132 million dollars during the same month of 2018, according to the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics, an increase of about 10.9 million dollars, with an increase of about 8.3%.
Question
Abdel Aziz - a farmer with a diploma in agriculture - is skeptical of the real intention behind the new government's plan, indicating that the government reminded them of cotton farmers after the country became threatened with a decline in its share of Nile water.
He emphasized that cotton is a non-water-consuming crop, hoping that the awakening will not be the same as its predecessors, with lethargy after the activity.
Speaking to Al-Jazeera Net, Abdel Aziz says that the real interest in cotton would be serious if the government provided the good seeds necessary to produce the finest cotton, which is Giza 45, instead of the short-staple cotton seeds that pushed farmers to abandon cotton cultivation, in addition to providing pesticides suitable for farmers and then managing operations Professional marketing away from the greed of the Mafia raw cotton trade.
According to the data of the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics, the quantity of ginning cotton that reached 388.5 thousand metric kantars during the first quarter of the agricultural season for the 2019-2020 cotton, compared to 537.2 thousand kantars for the same period of the previous season, with a decrease of 32.3%.
Egyptian cotton exports decreased by 38.6% during the same period, to 114.3 thousand kantars, compared to 186.1 thousand kantars for the same period in the previous season.