Ramadan is a lucrative time for importers, reports Mona El-Fiqi With Muslims fasting during daylight hours one might expect consumption to fall during Ramadan. What happens, though, is the opposite. Consumption -- and not only of food items -- goes through the roof. To encourage demand retailers provide huge discounts and credit deals on a whole range of consumer durables, from refrigerators to television sets and cookers. And then, of course, there are the new clothes that families traditionally buy for Eid Al-Fitr. In the weeks preceding Ramadan customers can be seen queuing in front of wholesale shops and supermarkets as they stock up on provisions for the holy month. And in an attempt to accommodate extra customers shopkeepers often add an extension to the front of their stores creating, in effect, a special department for the sale of yameesh, the imported dried fruit and nuts that are a staple of Ramadan. While the growth in demand for products traditionally associated with Ramadan -- generally foodstuffs but including, of course, the ubiquitous fanous -- is relatively easy to predict, other seemingly more mundane items have to be imported ahead of Ramadan to satisfy local demand. Fava beans, cooking oil, dairy products and wheat are all imported in quantity, with 75 per cent of the local demand for fava beans, the basic ingredient of fuul, that Sohour staple, being met from abroad. "Egypt imports 90 per cent of its cooking oil and 50 per cent of its annual consumption of wheat," says Mustafa Zaki, chairman of the importers division at the Federation of Chambers of Commerce. Importers, says Zaki, usually finalise import deals two or three months ahead of Ramadan in order to guarantee that supplies will be available in stores three or four weeks before Ramadan begins. According to statistics released by the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Industry, Egypt's import bill jumped from $14.8 billion in 2003 to $17.9 billion in 2004. Imported products include durable goods, raw materials, food commodities, petrochemical products and production inputs. Egypt imports 40 per cent of the total from the EU, 24 per cent from Asia, 16 per cent from the US and six per cent from Africa. The bulk of fawanis (lanterns) on sale are imported from China. They range in price from LE2 to LE200 for the largest, used to decorate mosques and streets. Chinese lanterns , says Zaki, score over local products in terms of both price and quality. "A locally produced fanous has difficulty competing with its Chinese equivalent," says Zaki. In general, he said, toy imports, including the fanous, are worth an annual $15 million in imports. Khaled Hamza, chairman of the Import and Customs Committee at the Egyptian Businessmen's Association, believes it is unfair to criticise importers for acting to satisfy the needs of local consumers by providing a range of products in the marketplace that compete on both quality and price. "The availability of imported products can act to encourage local producers to manufacture to a similar standard and compete in terms of cost," says Hamza. "Importers do not, after all, import to store the goods. They only import when they are sure that a market exists for the product."
