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FEATURE

fruit from far and near

the obour wholesale market has become a national and even regional hub for the produce trade, and a testament to the viability of shifting business out to the desert

by adam morrow

the rawd al farag wholesale market, in boulaq on the eastern side of the nile, was once a bustling urban souq. its location near the center of cairo ensured perpetual business, with many of the city’s millions of inhabitants buying their meat and produce from retailers who had, in turn, bought these wares from rawd al farag.

fruit and vegetables were shipped from all over the republic to the great state-owned souq. depending on the season, goods could come from upper egypt or the fertile farmland of the nile delta. apples were brought from as far away as syria and lebanon.

unlike the majority of egypt’s souqs, rawd al farag only sold in bulk. merchants would rent a certain amount of space from the market’s administration, and display their goods to cairo’s hundreds of retailers. supermarkets and smaller shops would buy large quantities of produce or fish for cheaper prices than at smaller markets.

but rawd al farag was established by the government in 1947, and wasn’t designed to contend with cairo’s population explosion and advancing urban sprawl. "now cairo has about 15 million people," notes one fruit retailer who used to frequent rawd al farag. "in 1947, we had only five or six million."

in 1994, the market, which used to be where the world trade center now stands, was moved, lock, stock and barrel, out to obour city – named after egypt’s obour, or crossing, of the suez canal in the 1973 war with israel. the city was itself only established by president mubarak in 1991.

long considered urban planning disasters, egypt’s "new cities" – such as sadat city, sixth of october city and tenth of ramadan city – have come into their own in recent years, attracting the investment, and subsequently the people, to transform them into actual urban entities.

originally part of a government push to relieve a strained-to-bursting urban population, the new desert cities have managed to entice at least a little capital out of cairo. a new fee-based primary school in sadat city has been touted by the local business association as the most modern and best-equipped in the country. another private-backed educational venture, sixth of october university, is an important social and economic component of egypt’s largest desert city.

at the time of the move to obour, however, many of the traders who had been selling at the rawd al farag market for years (and in some cases for generations), objected to the forced exodus to the desert. they suspected – rightly, as it turns out – that the new souq would be run more strictly, and that rent for vending stalls would go up.

when the market’s imminent shift to the desert was announced, merchants went so far as to file a lawsuit against the government for forcing them to move. and when they lost the case, police had to be called in to calm the situation in rawd al farag, according to a well-informed source within the obour market administration. "the merchants of rawd al farag must have spent about £e 4 or 5 million on lawyers’ fees," said the source, who insisted on anonymity.

the nasserist system of rent control had held sway in rawd al farag, and merchants accustomed to paying very little rent for their stalls deeply resented being uprooted. the obour souq, however, is "the best wholesale market in the middle east region – on a par with some european wholesale markets," according to the market official. this distinction, he stressed, naturally comes with a price tag.

divided into districts by appropriately named boulevards, like banana street and fruit street, the obour wholesale market covers an area of 300 feddans (1 feddan being roughly 1 acre) and contains a total of 1,400 vending stalls. the administration rents out these stalls in five size categories: 50, 90, 126, 135, or 140 square meters, at a charge of £e 764 per square meter.

in addition to its airier location, the new market boasts a variety of upgraded facilities. according to an official description issued by the market’s administration, the souq contains 15 enormous hangars, divided into 548 individual stalls, for the sale of vegetables; nine hangars with 336 stalls for fruit (except bananas); six hangars with 132 stalls for bananas; and two hangars with 62 stalls for fish.

extra space and larger stalls mean that each merchant can sell a wider variety of goods. according to trader ragab hussein al sawi, the older market restricted him to only two items of sale – onions and potatoes, for example. in obour, "you can sell up to four things at the same time," he enthused. al sawi now sells eggplants and tomatoes from menoufiya in addition to his old standards, zucchini and green beans.

the market’s pride and joy, however, is its complement of refrigeration units – a luxury that traders at rawd al farag never had. two refrigerators, each with a capacity of 5 tons, are available for the storage of bananas, while an 8-ton unit is reserved for fish. traders can also rent space in the market’s four massive "general" refrigerators – each with a capacity of 500 tons.

goods can now be bought in bulk and kept in storage at the market for longer periods. "now," enthused one fruit wholesaler, "i can store all my goods for a long time, for very little money."

the market has a fully functioning electricity infrastructure, with a generating capacity of 18 megawatts. there’s also an emergency generator to guard against power failures.

electronic weighing machines at the market’s single, seven-lane entrance determine how much cargo is coming in, while similar devices at the two exits measure how much is going out. truck drivers must pay taxes – 0.3 piastres per kilo at the entrance and 0.7 piastres per kilo at the exits – on the goods they are carrying. at rawd al farag, in contrast, drivers paid only about 15 piastres in total, for their entire haul. obour’s taxes go to maintaining the market’s many new utilities, such as refrigeration units and water-treatment facilities.

as it stands now, only sellers renting stalls are allowed into the market, and smaller, individual merchants are discouraged. these are the shelayish – the lone fruit and vegetable sellers who sit with baskets of goods for sale on street corners in any of cairo’s working-class districts, as well as in some of the more affluent parts of the city. at rawd al farag, such traders had been able to eke out a living without the capital to invest in wholesale buying. they were the ones who lost out most with the relocation to the desert.

according to the source in the obour administration, however, approval has been given for construction of a new section at the souq for retail trade. there, the shelayish, who used to illegally occupy the fringes of the obour wholesale market, will be able to hawk their wares to small customers buying produce for their families rather than for institutions.

few of the obour market’s traders live in obour city. coming from up and down the nile valley, the merchants bring their produce to the market from the farms on which it was grown, sell it, and return for another haul. the only wares brought to obour from outside egypt are the apples that still come from syria and lebanon.

mohammed omar omar, from demashq zebedani, a suburb of damascus famous for its apples, usually sells his produce in syria. "but if i have a surplus in syria, we bring it to sell in egypt," he said. getting the apples to obour, however, is not a simple task. "the border at nuweiba is difficult to cross, and the taxes are very high."

located 25 kilometers from cairo on the ismailia desert road, and positioned conveniently between the capital and the suez canal, the obour market has become a major trading hub for fish as well as produce. various kinds of shrimp are hauled by truck directly from the red sea coast, while sea bass comes straight from the mediterranean. "the quality of fish from obour is good," said gamal sherif, a senior buyer for the sainsbury’s supermarket chain.

sherif added that 75 percent of the fish sold in the british mega-chain’s cairo outlets comes from the obour market. "it’s got a good location," as its position on the desert highway "lets you easily go to giza, haram – wherever you want."

the market’s biggest competition comes from another new-city wholesale souq: the sixth of october market, in giza governorate. sainsbury’s, which opened in egypt 10 months ago and has since bought out the competing abc and edge supermarket chains, regularly orders produce and fish through sixth of october as well as obour.

while performing a similar function to that of obour, the sixth of october market is much smaller and serves fewer customers, according to abdel ghaffar al gazzar, executive general manager of the obour wholesale market. al gazzar maintains that obour holds a preeminent position in egyptian wholesale trade.

saber ahmed, originally from sohag, in upper egypt, has been bringing fruit from delta cities like sharqiya and ismailiya for 20 years. he used to rent a stall in rawd al farag, and when the souq moved out to the desert he moved the selling-end of his business with it.

he has been trading at obour ever since. buying from plantations in the delta, ahmed sells his fruit to metro supermarkets, five-star hotels, and the government, which, he said, buys for the army.

besides the supermarket chains and state organs, ahmed added, families often organize trips to the market, collecting enough money between them to load up a car with produce bought at wholesale prices. the money saved, he said, would more than cover the cost of the trip. "a kilo of bananas in cairo will cost you about four pounds – but here you can get them for two maybe two and a half."

as for the method of payment, "that is between the buyers and the sellers," according to al gazzar. many traders accept payments by installment, he said.

ahmed said he allows regular customers to pay him in monthly segments, rather than covering their purchases all at once. "maybe somebody wants to buy but won’t get the money until later," he said. such understandings between wholesalers and retailers have become especially important in these days of cash shortage, he added.

despite the prevailing recession, some merchants say business is better than ever. ramadan abdel meguid, who grows guavas in his native alexandria governorate and brings them to obour, insists that his sales have surpassed pre-1998 levels. the thriving trade, he insisted, is a result of obour’s improved location and facilities. "obour is much better than rawd al farag was. here there is much more space, and better facilities."

according to meguid, the many trucks available for hire at the obour market make shipping to customers easy. "distribution is better for me from here than from cairo," he said. moreover, not all of his customers come from the capital.

along with large and small retailers, many hotels take advantage of obour’s massive concentration of wholesale sellers. "most of the hotels in sinai buy their fruit and vegetables – though not their fish – from obour," said maged mohsen, a pastry chef at the taba hilton. hotels in cairo, however, generally use al ashry, a produce supplier in zamalek.

buyers at sainsbury’s have tried to gradually reduce their reliance on obour, opting instead to buy directly from "agrobusinesses" like pico, mafa and daltex, which ship their produce to the stores from their plantations in upper egypt and the delta. but no one who deals in wholesale produce in egypt can "afford to forget about obour," said bassem abadir, another senior buyer for sainsbury’s. even if goods are mostly bought elsewhere, obour’s year-round selection of fruit and vegetables – made possible by its extensive refrigeration facilities as well as its far-reaching supply network – is invaluable. "you can’t completely leave obour," abadir said. "fruit and vegetables are seasonal. can you open your store without tomatoes? you can’t. we might need to pay a little more, but if you have to have the product, you can’t do without obour."

sherif, the fish buyer, however, suggested that the market’s administration was somewhat apathetic about maintenance and sanitation. "the obour souq has become very dirty – perhaps due to neglect," he said. "of course everything run by the private sector is better. this is true all over the world. but for now, there’s no other option."

might the obour wholesale market eventually be privatized? al gazzar smiled at this question. "it is already private, because all the merchants rent their own stalls," he explained. "the government only manages."

the administration falls under the auspices of cairo governorate rather than a ministry. the souq was originally under the jurisdiction of the authority for new cities, but this changed in 1994, when a presidential decree transferred responsibility to the governorate.

"the authority for new cities is only good for building new cities, not for managing," the anonymous administration source said. "the authority acts like it’s going into someone’s home and trying to run it," he said, insisting that cairo governorate is doing a much better job at management.

mohsen, the taba hilton pastry chef, agreed. despite complaints about a lack of space and cleanliness when the market first opened in 1994, the administration appears to have gotten its act together since then. "it’s very good now," he said. "they seem to have solved their problems."

obour now receives an average of 4,200 tons of fish and produce daily, and the administration says there’s room for more. the market’s annual capacity of 3 million tons will be increased to 5 million tons some time "after the year 2000," according a report from the market administration.

"we are building more stalls for the wholesale traders," al gazzar said, adding that he hoped to increase the market’s current variety of produce to include dates and grain. the obour administration is also making an extension of the water system, which will increase the amount of clean water available to the market. these expansions and upgrades will be finished "after one year, maximum," al gazzar said.

eventually, a greater degree of private control may even materialize. according to the anonymous source in the market administration, merchants who have paid their monthly rent installments for 15 years will be given ownership of their stalls.

the administration’s role is to maintain the "complete self-sufficiency" of the overall market complex. the souq contains "virtually everything you need" for wholesale buying and selling, the anonymous official said, adding that delegations of producers and agriculturists come from all over the world to inspect "the middle east’s greatest wholesale market."

back in 1998, he recalled, a group of japanese businessmen visiting the market were amazed to find huge piles of molokhiya scattered about one of the hangars. in japan, apparently, the vitamin-rich vegetable is a rare delicacy. "back home, 100 grams of molokhiya costs 10 or 12 dollars," they said – or so the source recalled. even at retail prices, egypt is chock full of bargains.

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