Category: ECONOMY

News about economy

Hurghada witnesses the opening of Egypt’s first miniature city

Imagine having all of Egypt’s wonders and mesmerising monuments in one place, where one can go from the pyramids of Giza to Karnak temple in Luxor before paying a short visit to a Roman amphitheatre and the luxurious Montazah Palace in Alexandria. This has become possible just by visiting the Mini Egypt Park.

Mini Egypt Park is the first Egyptian miniature park, located in Hurghada. Due to the sheer size of the country and the vast distances between many of these real-world landmarks, tourists do not often get the opportunity to visit all of them. The park affords tourists the opportunity, in a sense, to visit all of Egypt’s most famous touristic landmarks.

Not only does the park provide its visitors the opportunity to see Egypt’s most decorated sites, it also grants them the opportunity to discover less well-known places such as the Cairo Opera House, Saint Catherine’s Monastery in Sinai and the Unknown Soldier Memorial in Alexandria.

“Hurghada is one of Egypt’s most well-known touristic spots, attracting people from all over the world,” the park’s CEO Wael Zakaria said. “However, these tourists usually don’t have the time to travel throughout all of Egypt. In Mini Egypt Park, we aim to gather all of the landmarks they should visit from different governorates in one place.”

The park’s creators spent seven years studying the possibility of establishing such a park in Egypt, taking into consideration its location, budget, and the landmarks they wanted to display.

“Miniatures exist in several countries across the world,” Zakaria said. “It’s not something that we came up with, but we needed to figure out how best to bring this concept into Egypt considering the current state of the country.”

The park includes 55 miniatures of landmarks from Cairo, Alexandria, Sinai, Luxor, and Aswan. This includes Tahrir Square, the Egyptian Museum, Cairo Opera House, Al-Sultan Hassan mosque, the Hanging Church, Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Montazah Palace, Karnak temple, the Aswan High Dam, and many more.

The miniature models are made of various different materials, depending on the composition of the original.

The park held its soft opening at the start of the year, and will be officially opening its doors in January.

The park occupies 30,000 sqm, of which 3,500 sqm are lakes representing the Red Sea, the Suez Canal, the Mediterranean Sea, and Lake Nasser.

The park’s soft opening brought in a large number of tourists and local residents, prompting many to revisit the park and recommend it to their friends and family. “We saw local residents who visited the park once and came back with their foreign friends who brought theirs as well,” Zakaria said. “This has been an optimistic start, indicating that once tourism levels return to their normal levels the park will be a big attraction.”

In the future, the park owners wish to expand the concept into Cairo, the North Coast, and Marsa Alam.

“Egypt is just full of wonderful and mesmerising landmarks that need more exposure,” Zakaria added.

(www.dailynewsegypt.com)

December 14, 2016
Promoting Social and Solidarity Economy in Greece

On October the Greek Parliament adopted a new law that will create a supportive legal environment for the development of Social and Solidarity Economy. According to Alternate Labour minister Rania Antonopoulos, the law provides solutions to issues like “funding, tax, social welfare and access to public procurement” and “clarifies the relationship between social economy operators and the public sector” with a view to establish this new type of economic activity and to combat unemployment.

The term Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) refers to a broad range of organizations that are distinguished from conventional for-profit enterprises by two core features. First, they have explicit social (and often environmental) objectives. Second, they involve varying forms of co-operative, associative and solidarity relations. They include, for example, cooperatives, mutual associations, women’s self-help groups, social enterprise and fair trade organizations and networks.

In part, the seeds for the development of social economy in Greece had been sawn by the vibrant grassroots movement that spread throughout the crisis-ridden country from early 2012 onwards: the groups that appeared reconnected electricity, organized distribution of agricultural produce “without middlemen”, set-up solidarity healthcare clinics and pharmacies, tutoring programs, provided free legal support on housing and debt, organized hospitality structures for refugees etc. Harnessing the power of this solidarity movement to rebuild the Greek economy was major pledge made by the SYRIZA: in its electoral programme, SYRIZA had highlighted the importance of reviving the co-op movement as a form of social and economic activity for the future, and suggested drawing up a strategy by looking at the most suitable sectors for co-operative development.

Outline of the new law on social economy

The Greek Government presented this August a Bill to the Parliament on the “Social and Solidarity Economy and the development of its agencies”, in order to expand to other forms of enterprises the scope of the old 2011 Law on cooperatives, which no longer met current needs. According to alternate Labour minister Rania Antonopoulos in her recent (24.10) interview for Efimerida ton Syntakton’ daily, the new law (voted on 20.10), expands the legal definition of SSE operators, while at the same time securing the core concepts of the coop culture: solidarity and parity between the members, participatory democracy in decision-making, development of economic activities that don’t focus on profit but are able to offer workers a living wage and provide services to local communities.

Furthermore, the minister notes that the law defines the procedure by which the government and the broader public sector will offer support to SSE entities, through open and transparent procedures, either by developing contracts, or by utilizing idle public property. Among the incentives and supporting measures to make sure that SEE operators are viable are tax deductions and exemptions.

The priorities of the new law were further outlined in the speech minister Antonopoulos gave during the International Conference on Social and Solidarity Economy, organized by the UN Inter-Agency Task Force on Social and Solidarity Economy (11/11, Rome). In the Conference, which was a part the UN’s Agenda for “Sustainable Development 2030” Minister Antonopoulos underlined that “the Greek government does not consider Social and Solidarity Economy to be another welfare policy measure addressing the most vulnerable. For the government, SSE presents a new model for work as well an alternative production and consumption model. Social and Solidarity Economy is an overall horizontal priority for us.”

This is why the government in this new law has put in place a National Strategy for SSE, which, as the minister pointed out, besides laying the groundwork for legal and institutional changes, establishes important supportive structures like the Regional Support Centers, which will provide free support and advice for those wishing to become active in SSE. Another supportive structure is the Social Economy Fund which, in the next three years, will allocate at least 157 million euros for the creation of new jobs and start-ups, as well as one-stop-shops supporting potential SSE practitioners. The Fund will become an active supporter of SSE ventures by making financial tools avaibable to those that cannot access them now through the bank system, such as grants and repayable grants, microlending-microcredits or guarantees.

According to the minister, the majority of comments and suggestions made via public consultation and during the discussion fora with stakeholders and political parties have been incorporated in the law, while the government also consulted with the International Labour Organization, exchanged views with the European confederation of industrial and service cooperatives (CICOPA), and several European Coops. “Greece is now at the forefront of the international effort to enable SSE. The new law, voted recently in Parliament with a wide majority is a concrete proof of our commitment to boost SSE” said minister Antonopoulos, adding that, “we believe that Social and Solidarity Economy bears all the necessary characteristics to become the vehicle for the creation of new forms of production and of enterprises that are not so much dependent on the market economy or on state policies”.

Background: UN and Europe views on SSE

The UN set up an SSE Task Force on Social and Solidarity Economy in September 2013, bringing together UN agencies and other inter-governmental organizations with a direct interest in SSE as well as umbrella associations of international social and solidarity economy networks. The Task Force believes that SSE holds considerable promise for addressing the economic, social and environmental objectives and integrated approaches inherent in the concept of sustainable development

According to the European Forum on Social and Solidarity Economy, organized by the European United Left / Nordic Confederation Group (GUE / NGL) the economic importance of the SSE is beyond any doubt, representing over 14 million jobs (6.5% of total employment in the EU) and having proved to be extraordinary resilient to the impacts of the crisis concerning unemployment. It is a booming sector, which generates qualitative benefits, which have the potential to improve the quality of democracy while proposing frames of production and reproduction more compatible with fairer and more sustainable societies.

The European Commission works closely with the European External Action Service to participate in international development forums to enhance the visibility of social and solidarity economy and make SSE part of the global political agenda. The Commission is supporting the prospect of more EU countries becoming members of the International Leading Group on SSE (ILGSSE).

(www.greeknewsagenda.gr)

December 14, 2016
Greece remains the leading ship-owning country

Greek shipowners have retained their role as top players in world shipping according to a special review recently published by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). Despite the challenges faced by the Hellenic ship owning community, Greece has continued to strengthen its position as the largest ship owning nation in recent years. The Review of Maritime Transport 2016provides an analysis of structural and cyclical changes affecting seaborne trade, ports and shipping, as well as extensive statistics. According to the review, the top five ship owning economies in terms of dead-weight tons (dwt) were Greece, Japan, China, Germany and Singapore, with Greek companies accounting for 16.36 per cent of the world industry. The Greek fleet amounts to 4.136 vessels(ships over 1,000 gt) of 293 (dwt), while in 2015 the Greek fleet amounted to 4.017 vessels of 279,4 (dwt).

The top five economies by flag of registration were Panama, Liberia, the Marshall Islands, Hong Kong (China) and Singapore. The Greeks have not been quite so dominant in the newbuild market, as78 per cent of the fleet (by tonnage) are registered under a foreign flag. The largest shipbuilding countries are China, Japan and the Republic of Korea, accounting for 91.4 per cent of gross tonnage constructed in 2015, while the largest suppliers of seafarers are China, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Union of Greek Shipowners

Addressing an event marking the 100th anniversary of the Union of Greek Shipowners in Athens on November 9th, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, noted that while Greece’s population is only 0.15 per cent of the world population, Greeks control 25 per cent of the world’s total merchant fleet. These numbers are of huge signifigance not only for the Greek but for the European economy as well, in terms of competitiveness.“After six years of deep crisis, the Greek economy is finally in a phase of recovery,” he said, adding creditors should note the efforts made by the country to achieve fiscal consolidation by offering debt relief.

Traditionally, shipping gives an important boost to the Greek economy, with opportunities to generate income and employmentas well as promote foreign trade, in a country which after 2009 is experiencing severe GDP recession. Amid all the problems pounding the Greek economy, some things are looking up. One prominent trend giving hope and optimism for the future is the high quality of maritime studies in Greece, in combination with the potential of Greek shipping and the high standard of Greek shipping personnell.

The Prime Minister also called on domestic and international investors to take make good use of business opportunities in the country, to increase their involvement in different sectors of the shipping business, port and cruise operations, as well as capitalize on the four major infrastructure projects underway, such as the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline, the Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria, the Revithoussa LNG Terminal upgrade and the Alexandroupolis Independent Natural Gas System project, a modern, cutting edge technology project which comprises an offshore floating unit for the reception, storage and re-gasification of LNG.

Addressing the same event, Theodore Veniamis, president of the Union of Greek ship-owners, emphasized the fact that Greek shipping is a national capital resource that lies beyond and above party politics, with a multidimensional economic, political and strategic importance for our country.

(www.greeknewsagenda.gr)

December 14, 2016
Funding Entrepreneurship in Cairo

Although the Egyptian government has long been an enthusiastic promoter of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), up until recently, financing institutions did not have a unified definition of what makes an SME. According to Haytham Waguih, Head of Private Equity (PE) at the Arab African International Bank (AAIB) and board member at the Egyptian Private Equity Association (EPEA), the absence of a single unified definition for SME has meant that investment funds and banks across Egypt often use very different parameters. Last December, the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) released a circular re-defining small, medium and micro-enterprises – a move that Waguih lauds as key to establishing a solid foundation for funding entrepreneurs moving forward.

In January of this year, the CBE launched a program to finance 350,000 SMEs for EGP 200 billion (US $22.5 billion) over the next four years, with a declining interest rate of 5% annually, and introduced a policy that will oblige banks to commit 20% of their total loan portfolio to SMEs. But in spite of these recent policies, the government still lacks a systematic and methodical approach to address entrepreneurship, which, according to Waguih, is one of the keys to fostering a climate for the growth of the sector. “There is urgency and pragmatism in terms of developing a methodology and mechanism on the ground that are still lacking,” he notes.

According to Ayman Ismail, Assistant Professor and Abdul Latif Jameel Endowed Chair of Entrepreneurship and Director of the American University in Cairo’s Venture Lab, reform of the macroeconomic environment is key to attracting more entrepreneurs and businesses to Egypt – although he prefers a more minimalist role when it comes to government. “There are two types of interventions by the government: one is doing things themselves and the other is creating the environment to help people start doing things. I believe that the government should be a catalyst for more private accelerators and incubators by supporting them and creating a conducive environment for startups,” he says. “The biggest thing the government can do for entrepreneurs is to clear the bureaucratic hurdles. This helps all companies, but more so the younger ones that are more vulnerable.”

(egyptianstreets.com)

November 5, 2016