Premium ContentMouse over Home then click on Premium Content for information.The speaker in the meeting room at downtown Omaha's four-star hotel Thursday is talking about how Egypt's peaceful revolution opens the doors to more trade with the United States.
But the side discussion in the smaller room next door is more down to earth.
What's the price for 1,500 live cattle to be shipped to Alexandria, Egypt's port city on the Mediterranean Sea, from Rhea Cattle Co.'s feedlot near Arlington, Neb.?
That's the sort of deal-making that the U.S. government hopes will be sparked by a conference that brought about 50 U.S. and Egyptian business and government people to the Hilton Omaha, plus similar groups to three other parts of the country after an initial meeting in Washington, D.C.
The goal of the “Egypt: Forward” conference is to form and strengthen commercial ties between U.S. and Egyptian businesses, which would help the U.S. economy and, at the same time, give economic support for progress toward a stable, democratic Egypt.
One of those at the meeting is Khalid AbouHaib, an Egyptian-American who is managing vice president of Trade Wind International Corp. of Bridgewater, N.J. He buys farm products to supply supermarkets for Egypt's 85 million people.
He emailed participants in the Omaha portion of the conference and got an answer from Sam Vakhidov of Lincoln, a director of Messina LLC, which arranges trading in farm commodities. Vakhidov is working with Rhea Cattle Co. to increase its exports — hence, the proposed 1,500-cattle shipment to Egypt.
Their discussion quickly came down to the price: Could the exporter afford to buy the cattle, ship them to Egypt and still make a profit?
As the conference moved along, Vakhidov and AbouHaib were optimistic that someday those cattle will board an ocean-going livestock transport bound for Egypt. “We'll see how it turns out,” Vakhidov said.
Such business-as-usual discussions are the norm these days in Egypt, said Tarek Tawfik, managing director of the Cairo Poultry Group in Giza and a director of Egypt's federation of chambers of commerce. Only five months after its revolution, Egypt is moving toward elections that will create the region's largest democracy and, potentially, its strongest economy.
“The dust is settling. Now is the time,” he said. “The changes should put a positive twist on business.”
Although agricultural companies have been privately owned for years, the former government's bureaucracies still made it difficult for small businesses and helped create a “shadow” economy of untaxed, unregulated commerce, Tawfik said.
As the regulatory system eases, he said, those businesses can provide new vitality to the Egyptian economy.
Thursday's conference will help Nebraskans and Egyptians learn about each other's potential as trading partners, said Nebraska Agriculture Director Greg Ibach, who spoke briefly at the meeting. “The opportunities there have expanded as a result of the revolution,” he said.
The Egypt: Forward conference also sent delegations interested in transportation to New York City, in energy to Houston and in information and communications technology to Silicon Valley, Calif. The Omaha visitors focused on agribusiness will tour irrigation manufacturing facilities here today and leave Saturday.
The conference is sponsored by the U.S. Trade & Development Agency, a federal office that is working on President Barack Obama's effort to double U.S. exports in five years.
Leila Aridi Afas, director of export promotion for the agency, said planners picked Omaha for the agricultural portion of the program because many of the Egyptian delegates were interested in irrigation, grain and livestock.
“Agriculture is a tremendous part of the Egyptian economy, the backbone, really,” Afas said.
Jose Fernandez, assistant commerce secretary, said this week in Washington that the United States “must help the Arab Spring take root,” in part by helping Egypt's economy grow. He added, “A prosperous Egypt, supported by economic growth and a strong private sector, will be an anchor of stability for the region.”
Irrigation is of particular interest because the country is trying to replace its flood irrigation methods with the water-conserving irrigation systems invented and manufactured here.
Ibrahim Seddik-Aly Ayoub, adviser to Egypt's agriculture ministry, said the nation's economic strategies include developing 1 million acres of desert into farmland over the next six years through irrigation, with the goal of improving its domestic food production.
Hesham El Naggar, vice chairman of Daltex Corp., an agricultural company based in Giza, said his company has been using irrigation systems made by Valmont Industries of Omaha and Lindsay Manufacturing of Lindsay, Neb., for 25 years.
“We are hungry for more of that technology,” he said.
Contact the writer: 402-444-1080, steve.jordon@owh.com, twitter.com/buffettOWH
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