BusinessReport Know where 1 8 4 0 Africa, Middle East and ... Business Report.pdf · minium Company« is now known as Du-bai Aluminium Corporation but is still sta-te owned.Previously,DUBAL

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The Libyan patientCAN THE COLLAPSE BE AVERTED?

Medical servicesand life sciences

CHECK-UP FOR THE MIDDLE EAST

Business in Angola

BONANZA OR DELIRIUM

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THE NEW TEMPTATION

Know where the journey leads

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BusinessReport 4/2011 03

E D I T O R I A L

coverillustration:Lesprenger

The story of 13-year-old Suliman Salem drew sympathy from all quarters – in lateSeptember, surgeons in Bremen removed a piece of shrapnel from the Libyanteenager’s back. He’s still a paraplegic, but at least he’s alive. The war in Libya is

over – for now – and has disappeared from the headlines. But the victims have not reco-vered so quickly, and Libya’s health care system is falling apart. It needs help if it is to beable to treat people, and it needs partners to participate in establishing a modern healthcare system (page 38).

One by one, the oil pumps are starting up again, and in the long term, the Libyanswill be able to pay handsomely for medical expertise – we have therefore devotedthis issue of zenith to the health care sector.

AGOCO is sure to have a prominent role: for decades it was considered a reliable,though neglected, stepchild of Muammar al-Gaddafi’s National Oil Company. »Wewere told what to do; we had to deliver,« says spokesman Abdeljalili M. Mayuf (page30). But then the company stood up to be counted, making its mark on the globalpolitical scene by breaking with Gaddafi at the beginning of the uprising in easternLibya and selling oil to the rebels. Was the fall of the regime an »AGOCO revolu-tion«?

The Russians and Chinese, who supported Gaddafi to the end, will find it »parti-cularly hard going in Libya now«, warns Mayuf. His words give pause for thoughtnot only for the Russian energy giant Gazprom but also for several German compa-nies. BASF subsidiary Wintershall, for example, is producing in Libya again, but alsohas a joint venture there with Gazprom. Will contracts that were once considered se-cure now be reviewed?

All eyes are on the upheaval taking place in North Africa – the German governmentis among those who want to support the change with economic and developmentaid. This leaves German investors in countries that have not experienced the ArabSpring feeling marooned. As Christoph Partsch points out, there is plenty of »low-hanging fruit« ripe for the picking in Algeria (page 24). But also the »oil dorado« ofAngola is also worth a closer look (page 26).

Business pioneers have been enthusing about opportunities in Iraq for years, butwill the investment promises still be valid after 2012? Iraq’s future once the US troopsdepart is truly uncharted territory, but that is precisely why Ingo Sahlmann, anentrepreneur in a variety of sectors, believes now is the time to take risks (page 12).The recently unveiled »German City« in Bagdad is a beacon of daring and audacity –a new suburb to host businesses and 25,000 residents. We will report regularly onprogress in the coming year.

There is much to do in Africa, the Middle East, and South and Central Asia, so fromnext year, zenith-BusinessReport will appear bi-monthly, plus special editions.

04 BusinessReport 4/2011

U P D AT E S

06 Aluminium, gems, and bonus milesNews from India to Niger

P R O F I L E

12 »When things get quiet, it’s too late!«Ingo Sahlmann establishes enterprises in Iraq

M O N E Y A N D P O W E R

14 Expanding into the abyssThe Palestinian economy thrives on credit. When will it crash?

17 Back to school after the Arab SpringBerlin invests in educational cooperation

18 »Worse than drought«For months Moroccans have been protestingagainst water giant Veolia

22 The cycle of cynicismThere’s a problem with sanctionig Iran

24 Who’s afraid of Algiers?German businesses pay the bill for not having had a revolution in Algeria

26 Our deep belief in helpingKazakhstan’s ambassador to Europe and Nato is proud of his homeland’s achievements

C O M M O D I T I E S

28 »We want people to see us as a second Dubai«How money is made in oil dorado Angola

32 »It would be very difficult for Russians and Chinese«Abdeljalil M. Mayuf, information director of Libya’s revolutionary oil company AGOCO, interviewed

36 Challenge the IndusPakistan’s cotton industry expects the next flood

F O C U S H E A LT H C A R E

38 The Libyan patientA health care system confronts collapse

42 Good genes required for DubaiThe Emirate tries to attract biotechnology

44 Saudization overdue?Nursing crisis in the Kingdom

46 The superchipThe UAE want all electronic files

48 Would you like a facelift with that?Plastic surgery in Beirut: new bust andnose can be bought on credit

C O N S U M P T I O N

50 Persil vs Tide, Apple vs ABMBrands wars for the Middle East

52 Turkish spirit – global standardsThe ads market at the Bosporus

A R T S A N D B U S I N E S S

56 Treading softlyWhy Oriental carpets are so sought after

58 M Y . . . B E I R U T

Clubs, restaurants, and recommendations for the extended business trip

62 P E R S O N A L A S S I S TA N T

Agenda entries and latest newsfron the sun deck

C O N T E N T S

Deutscher Levante Verlag GmbHLinienstrasse 106D-10115 Berlin

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EDITOR-IN-CHIEF:

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MANAGING EDITOR:

Marcus Mohr

EDITORS:

Mohamed AmjahidRobert Chatterjee, Nils Metzger

AUTHORS AND CORRESPONDENTS:

Mathias Brüggmann, Dr. Renate Dieterich, Dr. Christian Hülshörster,Christoph Dreyer, Yasemin Ergin,Andreas Hackl, Alexander von Hahn,Dr. Christoph Partsch, Romy Rösner,Katrin Sandmann, Christoph Sydow,Björn Zimprich

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Lesprenger, Berlin

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PUBLISHED BY

illustration: FXFOWLE


12.5 % economicgrowth ...

U P D AT E S

… is what analysts are predicting for Ni-ger for 2012. So far, the country’s per ca-pita GDP has ranked among the lowestin the world. The Sahel republic’s onlyclaim to fame is its deposits of uranium,which French nuclear power companyAreva is exploiting. Oil production isbeing ramped up in the Agadem Blockin western Niger, and there are alreadyreports of disputes between the govern-ment and the holder of the exploitation

rights, the China National PetroleumCompany.

Early last year, Niger was inadvertentlyresponsible for the price of oil going sky-high when reports of an alleged milita-ry putsch in the capital, Niamey, trigge-red prompt action by American com-modities speculators. But they hadconfused Niger with its neighbour, Ni-geria, one of the world’s biggest expor-ters of oil.

ultraorthodox Jews, or American Mormons able to participate.It is not cultural practices that determine who may participate,but the main place of residence. Germans – if they live in Dubai– may also accumulate »miles« based on flights made by »thoseunder their protection«.

I t is estimated that airline bonus miles worldwide are worthseveral hundred billion euros – hard currency that can so-metimes be quite difficult to spend. Occasional flyers often

don’t accumulate enough points in their accounts to ‘spend’ themon a flight before they expire, and the terms and conditions havebecome a hot topic in Internet forums.

Bonus miles are strictly linked to the account holder only andnot transferrable, even though flight rewards can be gifted toothers. But some airlines in the Middle East are making excep-tions: Lufthansa, which has been operating in the Gulf and in Pa-kistan, Iran, Lebanon and Egypt, is one airline that now allowsthe »head of the household« to enrol his wives, children, relati-ves and domestic employees in its bonus »Miles & More familyprogramme«. Any miles they accrue are credited to his account.According to Lufthansa spokesman Jan Bärwalde, »this is the on-ly region for which we have made an exception, and it is for pu-rely cultural reasons«.

When zenith asked whether the airline’s special offer had an-ything to do with certain aspects of sharia (in that a woman cantravel only with her husband’s permission, according to someschools of thought within Islam), the idea was rejected. Rather,Lufthansa was simply adapting to local customs.

The programme is not being offered to Muslims in Europe,Africa or Asia, it is pointed out. Nor are tribal leaders in Yemen,

If you’re male and the head of a household residing in Dubai,

whether expat or local, you can now earn air miles from trips to

and from Dubai taken by members of your family.

Miles & More halal style? Germans living in the Gulf States can pass air miles on to family members

FIGURED


Legislationto fit the goalAluminium giant DUBAL allowed to issue bonds and expand

Sheik Mohammed al-Maktoum has con-verted huge industrial group DUBAL to anew legal form. The former »Dubai Alu-minium Company« is now known as Du-bai Aluminium Corporation but is still sta-te owned. Previously, DUBAL was not per-mitted to make investments outsideDubai, hence its 2007 joint venture withAbu Dhabi government fund Mubadala:the result, EMAL, soon became a globalplayer and is to open the world’s largestaluminium smelter in Abu Dhabi in 2014.

Its fiercest competitor is the Qatari com-pany Qatalum. Free of the former re-strictions on how it can invest, DUBAL isnow better placed to compete for the scar-ce bauxite deposits in Australia and SouthAmerica. At the beginning of November,Mubadala signed off a contract for theproduction of pet coke in Jiangsu, China– Dubai is not involved. Behind the sce-nes, the two emirates are vying for controlof EMAL. In March 2011 it was revealedthat Abu Dhabi’s offer to its neighbour ofshares in DUBAL, and therefore a greatershare in EMAL, had fallen through.

The existence of the new DUBAL raisesinteresting questions about its potential in-volvement in other countries. Now that itcan issue bonds, it will be able to grow inleaps and bounds.

the stone with injections of resin that onlybecome visible when the stone is heated,«says one appraiser.

Ever since Angelina Jolie attended theOscars in 2009 sporting high-carat emeraldearrings by US designer Lorraine Schwartz,demand has rocketed. »Schwartz triggeredan emerald euphoria that is still strong,«says Menachem Jundef, an internationallyrenowned jewellery dealer based in Berlin.

The »Middleton Effect«, based on thesapphire ring with which Prince Williamproposed to Kate Middleton, created simi-lar momentum.

In 2011, the finest sapphires reached topprices of EUR 50,000 per carat. Emeralddealers now want to fan the flames of the

Indian film star Madhuri Dixit is the

»face« of the emerald industry.

picture:Emeralds

forElephants

The Gulf States are competing for the best

industrial location for aluminium.

Sheik Mohammed is intent on winning.

illustration:Hadinugroho

market in India, which has always been a lu-crative one for precious stones. Holdingcompany Pallinghurst Resources, which isinvesting in the exploitation of emeralds,rubies and amethysts in Zambia and Mo-zambique, says it intends to do so in an en-vironmentally friendly way and will directsome of the profits towards reforestationand promoting biodiversity.

U P D AT E S

picture:ShenghungLin

/licensed

byC

reativeC

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Generic

Emerald feverfrom the EastCelebrity events trigger a boom in trade in colourful precious stones – Bollywood joins in

The price of emeralds, rubies and sapphi-res rose considerably in 2011 – at some po-ints, the world average price for even a me-dium-quality carat was approximately 20to 25 per cent more than it was a year ear-lier. Volatile stock market prices and ex-change rates made precious gems a finan-cially attractive investment as well as a be-autiful one. Mainly, however, it was growingnumbers of nouveau riche Indians andChinese that pumped up the market.

Trade in coloured gems, warn the ex-perts, is much more speculative and riskythan trade in diamonds: it attracts new de-alers who compete with the old hands anddon’t always pay enough attention to qua-lity. »Sometimes they even hide defects in


U P D AT E S

ARCHITECTURE


U P D AT E S

Museum corporatestyleThe plans abound with the trendiestterms for tenders for major publicconstruction projects: The »Museumof the Built Environment« that NewYork architectural firm FXFOWLE is planning in Saudi Arabia willshowcase »how ancient and modernideas of sustainability influence thefuture of an environment shaped by humans«

FXFOWLE’s concept of the form of the museum is

inspired by the world cultural heritage cities Madain

Salih (Al-Hijr) and at-Turaif, which comprise

religious buildings and monumental tombs in the

middle of the desert. One would hope that the museum

will have a livelier feel. The façade will trigger associa-

tions with erosion and cut stone.

Founded in 1979 by Bruce S. Fowle, the firm has made

a name for itself on the design scene as a reliable

industrial enterprise rather than for stylistic innovation.

The opening date has been set for 2014.

rendering: FXFOWLE


U P D AT E S

ARCHITECTURE

The plan sounds mind-bogglingly impressivebut the designers at FXFOWLE seem contentto be vague about detail at this stage. Eventhe content of the exhibits is to be a surprise.But it is definitely going ahead – excavationsfor the foundations in the newly plannedKing Abdullah Financial District of Riyadhstarted a few weeks ago. The museum will also have an auditorium and a monorail station. The useable area will be approximately 34,000 square metres.

rendering: FXFOWLE

Ingo Sahlmann: the guests arrived at

his wedding in armoured vehicles.

picture:private

When coffee cups from a cer-tain restaurant become cove-ted objects, you know the re-

staurateur is doing something right. Thecups from »Dojo’s Diner« are prestige ob-jects – even found nestled amongst fami-ly photos on the desks of German diplo-mats at the embassy in Baghdad. »The re-staurant is one of the few places whereyou can go for a quiet beer and feel rela-tively safe of an evening.«

Dojo’s Diner is situated in the inter-national zone, formerly known as the»Green Zone«. Since the war began in2003, the suburb, home to most govern-ment buildings, foreign embassies andcompany headquarters, has been walledin and subject to tight security. To put itpolitely, the place feels unreal, out oftouch with the realities of daily life for

most Iraqis who, of course, never evensee it unless they hold one of the highlysought-after access passes.

Ingo Sahlmann, 49, a restaurateur andbusinessman from Essen, Germany, has ablue access pass that opens virtually anydoor. A blue pass signifies that the holderhas made his mark, is well connected inthe political, business and diplomaticcommunities.

Sahlmann’s company, GSI Business Ser-vices, began in 2007 with a rather mo-dest contract – to supply 5,000 screws tothe US embassy in Baghdad. »The profitwas something like 500 dollars,« helaughs. It was six months before he wasable to pay his staff. But GSI went on tobigger things, including construction, ser-vices and hotel and restaurant operations.GSI provides accommodation for US-

Ingo Sahlmann runs a restaurant, a construction

company and a business services company in

Baghdad. His first trip to Iraq took place against

the background of a very sensitive mission.

What happened next was totally unexpected

by Katr in Sandmann

»When things getquiet, it’s too late!«


P R O F I L E

»Mortar rounds,two or three

times a week«

FORTUNE

AID in Baghdad and containers for a Na-to training centre, and has numerous ser-vice contracts within the UN compound.Sahlmann tells us he has around 100 em-ployees, but is silent regarding turnoverand profit. He’s a member of the PrivateSector Development Council, a WorldBank initiative to promote private enter-prise in Iraq.

Tall and powerful-looking, Sahlmannstands out in a crowd – as do his projects.The latest is a business hotel right next tothe restaurant, the room rate USD 300 pernight. Situated in the international zone,it could become a good meeting point forGerman business people. If they turn up,that is. The really large companies are the-re, of course, although often under anot-her name and represented by Iraqis. Butmedium-sized companies are noticeablefor their absence. Sahlmann confirms whatwe’ve heard many times before: Turkishcompanies are in the lead, closely followedby the French. »Only the Germans are he-sitating,« says the frustrated entrepreneur.»Of course it’s not particularly safe here.We get mortar rounds or rocket attacks

two or three times a week.« He leaves thezone only rarely, as the risk of being kid-napped is still very high.

His company is keen to provide con-sultancy services to foreign companies,especially from Germany, that want toget involved in business in Iraq. It alre-ady provides logistical support to seve-ral Middle Eastern companies and onefrom the United States, which are set-ting up representative offices. »Partners-hip with the Iraqis is difficult. It’s notenough just to turn up every two monthsfor a few days.«

But even the best-laid plans turn to cu-stard from time to time – on a daily ba-sis, in fact. Right now, the authorities ha-ve temporarily closed the restaurant andthere are no hamburgers or beer to be hadat Dojo’s Diner. Sahlmann has little to sayon the subject. Officially, it has to do withpermits. Regular customers suspect that ajealous competitor is behind it. »We’reusing the down time to redecorate andmake improvements,« says Sahlmann.»We’ll probably be open again next weekalready.«


P R O F I L E

Until 2008, there were almost

daily attacks in Baghdad’s

international zone. Nowadays

the suburb is comparatively safe.

One can imagine that a cool head, coupledwith self-confidence and faith in God, isthe prerequisite for moving a business toBaghdad. Sahlmann has all three. With abackground in business studies, he was abusiness development manager for a Ger-man armaments company, seeking newlines of business in northern Iraq, a Kur-dish area, in 2006. Nothing came of it, butduring his travels he fell in love with anAmerican colleague, who had been in Iraqfor some time already. At a time when ter-rorist groups were bombing churches inIraq, they got married in one, Sahlmannsporting a rose in his buttonhole, his bri-de in a white dress. The guests travelled tothe reception in central Baghdad in ar-moured vehicles.

Nobody in the Baghdad business com-munity knows what will happen after UStroops leave Iraq at the end of the year.Thus far in his career, however, Sahl-mann has always found business in themidst of risk. »By the time things havequietened down here, it will be too lateto get involved in a big way,« is how hesees the future.

Pursuing profitwhere risk is at itshighest

picture:Ashley

Brokop

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SA

irForce

I zz Tawil takes a felt pen and draws abig circle on the flip chart in his of-fice. The little arrows along the line

represent the individual elements withina stand-alone system. »The Palestinianeconomy is a closed monetary cycle,« heexplains. Tawil, the managing director ofSharakeh, a micro financing network inRamallah, adds symbols to the diagram:a worker, whose wages are paid by a con-struction company; the construction com-pany, which contracts to the PalestinianAuthority; and the Authority itself, whichfinances its projects with funds donated bythe European Union, the United States,Saudi Arabia and other Arab states. »Apartfrom a few small investments, external aidis the only thing that keeps the money flo-

wing,« says Tawil, wearing the grim ex-pression of an economist predicting astock market crash.

Tawil is not the only one to hold thisview. More and more experts are warningthat the system is fatally reliant on politi-cal developments and the reliability orotherwise of donors, who are not alwayscooperative and sometimes even default. Itwas October before the Authority receivedUSD 200 million from Saudi Arabia thathad been promised for March 2011. Alge-ria and Kuwait were months behind onpayments. The US Congress scratched USD200 million to punish the Palestinian go-vernment for applying for membership ofthe United Nations. According to officialstatistics, several hundred Palestinians lost

their jobs as a result. It was even worse in2006, when the EU and the USA cancelledmore than USD 1 billion in aid after Ha-mas won the elections. If international do-nors were to respond to contemporary po-litical events with a similar boycott, the ef-fects on the Palestinian economy could be



DEBTS

picture:dge

Boom town Ramallah. The economy in the West

Bank is on the up and up. Prices for consumer

goods and property are rising. And Palestinians

are borrowing money so they can participate.

Expanding into the abyssThe Palestinian economy subsists thanks to external aid, but funds seldom arrive on time and are contingent on the bigger political picture. The present boom is being financed entirely by borrowed money – and economists are warning that the system will collapse

by Andreas Hackl



>>

fatal, not least because it has become over-ly reliant on loans, which have become away of life at all levels of the economy.

The worried financial expert does notneed to look far afield for evidence of thisdependence: his receptionist at the Sha-rakeh office, 24-year-old Muhammad,earns USD 300 a month. A second job inthe afternoons and evenings in a coffeehouse earns him an extra USD 400. Soonto become engaged, he needs an apart-ment and a car, which every married manis obliged to have if he is not to look like

a vagabond, but to achieve that he’ll haveto take out a loan.

A monthly salary of USD 350 is enoughto borrow USD 10,000,« explains a bankerat the Arab Bank in Ramallah – where, itseems, everybody lives on borrowed mo-ney. Cars, houses and even mobile tele-phones can all be purchased with loans, sothere is an enormous temptation to indul-ge. There is a downside to the ‘credit cul-ture’, however, in that banks will only con-sider borrowers creditworthy if they havesteady employment. Hence the younger ge-

neration has no desire at all to be inde-pendent or take risks. »Set up your owncompany? Forget it! Politically, we’ve end-ed up with a youth culture that puts a sta-ble income above national resistance andthe future of Palestine,« says Izz Tawil, who-se micro financing network also lends mo-ney to people who do not have a perma-nent income. According to Tawil, morethan 42,000 low-income earners, or 25 to30 per cent of all borrowers, draw down lo-ans from 11 micro finance organisations.»Our clients are particularly at risk in ti-mes of crisis. A woman who gets a loan tostart a business has no chance of success ifthe economy does not get an injection offunds from outside.« That’s just how it isin those parts of the system where there isno money at all.

The weakest link in the chain of depen-dence, however, is the Palestinian Autho-rity itself. By far the biggest Palestinianborrower, it owes a total of USD 1.016 bil-lion. More than a third of the USD 3.4billion of current credit relates to admi-nistration. If administrative employees arepaid late, or paid only half their wages, ashappens all too often, their own loans willrapidly mount up and become a seriouspoverty trap.

A severe crisis like that of 2006, with aidnon-existent, could have fatal consequen-ces for the compartmentalised economy.The big question is whether insolvency on

»The banks will survive«

zed businesses more than anyone, accor-ding to their umbrella association, thePalestinian Contractors Union (PCU),which represents the 750 local compa-nies that pay the wages and salaries of 28to 30 per cent of all Palestinian employ-ees. The construction sector represents28 per cent of GDP, says PCU spokes-man Adal Oudah, including those whobenefit indirectly.

The vast majority (80 per cent) of thecompanies that undertook constructionprojects on behalf of the authorities we-re not paid money owing to them sinceMarch until eight months later. Manywere forced to borrow more money –with bad outcomes in some cases: »In thelast two years, borrowing more moneyhas sent 30 companies into bankruptcy.«The smaller construction companies arethe worst hit, as they invest a great dealin order to implement a project, but veryquickly encounter problems with cashflow. »In situations like that, everythingyou earn from a project ends up in thebanks’ hands,« complains Oudah. »Banksare not going to cooperate. In fact, theyactually do quite well out of the govern-ment’s payments crisis. But the privatesector could work with us if this finan-cial uncertainty continues or even getsworse.«

the part of the Palestinian Authority wouldtrigger a chain reaction that would alsobring the banks down.

A total of 18 banks are represented in theWest Bank and the Gaza Strip by 223 bran-ches. Ten of the banks are foreign and eightare Palestinian. The banks are the strongestlink in the system of interlocking depen-dencies. Shireen al-Ahmad from the Pale-stine Monetary Authority (PMA) believesit is highly unlikely that any credit bubblecould actually cause a crash in the currentenvironment. »The banks can cope withhuge shocks. People trust the banks andare investing in them more and more. Andthe loans are building up,« she says. The to-tal capital of Palestinian banks has risen toaround USD 9 billion, while the percenta-ge of borrowers unable to repay their lo-ans has sunk from 14.5 to 2.6. Smallerbanks, which are more vulnerable duringa crisis, are tending to merge with largerones, she says.

Nevertheless, the Authority’s dependenceon aid creates a high risk. »More than 40per cent of the credit portfolios of all banksis linked to the PA and its employees. Apolitical shock like the one in 2006 wouldturn that 40 per cent into a risk factor over-night,« al-Ahmad points out.

That kind of scenario strikes fear inthe hearts of the owners of medium-si-



Selected economic data from the Palestinian Autonomous Regions

2008 2009 2010

gross domestic product (in USD billions) – 13.0 –

gross domestic product (change from previous year, as a percentage) – 8.0 –

population (in millions) – 3.9 4.2

imported goods and services (in USD billions) 3.8 – –

exported goods and services (in USD billions) 0.5 – –

inflation rate (change from previous year, as a percentage) – 2.5 6.0

current account balance (in USD billions) 12.0 12.8 –

current account balance (change from previous year, as a percentage) – 6.7 –

sources: CIA World Factbook; IMF (International Financial Statistics)

Ramallah has all the appearances of a boomtown. On the face of it, there is nothing ab-out daily life to suggest that the realities ofthe Israeli occupation are curbing the po-tential of the West Bank economy and par-ticularly that of the Gaza Strip. However,»until we have an independent Palestinianstate, we will be dependent on internationalaid,« comments Ghassan Khatib, a spokes-man for the PA, on the economic outlook. Hesays that, to keep the system functioning inthe meantime, they are working on revisingthe government’s budget. It’s a promise thatnot all Palestinian companies believe.

Some take a more radical position regar-ding external aid: Bashar al-Masri, forexample, is a Palestinian billionaire who isbuilding a stand-alone city for 40,000 re-sidents in the West Bank, by the name ofRawabi. As far as Masri is concerned, aidfrom other countries should be stoppedaltogether, so that a Palestinian economycan develop. »Things will have to get wor-se in order to get better,« he says, quotingan ancient Arabic proverb, stating that Pa-lestinians will have to make sacrifices inorder to give up external assistance. Hewants his mega-project – funded almostentirely by USD 800 million from QatariDiar Real Estate – to be a model of politi-cally independent business development.The funder is owned by Qatar’s ruling fa-mily, but he says there is no question ofthis being another form of politically mo-tivated external aid. He believes that theinvestment in Rawabi will pay off for theinvestors over the long term. »We Palesti-nians are stubborn,« he says, waving out thewindow towards the Israeli settlement ofAteret, on a nearby hill. »One day, that sett-lement will be a suburb on the outskirts ofRawabi.«

Wouldn’t it be better to turn down offers ofmoney from outside?



G ermany and Egypt can look backon more than a century of coo-peration in the areas of educa-

tion and research – from Tübingen doc-tor Theodor Bilharz, who discovered thecause of bilharzia (schistosomiasis) in theNile in the 18th century, to the foundingof German schools early in the 20th cen-tury, to the German University in Cairo in2003. The German Archaeological Insti-tute has been involved in Egypt for morethan 100 years, promoting quality coope-ration in cultural and educational policytogether with the Goethe Institute and theGerman Academic Exchange Service (DA-AD). The »German-Egyptian Year ofScience and Technology 2007« gave birthto the German-Egyptian Research Fundand GERLS, a jointly funded scholarshipprogramme for Egyptian doctoral stu-dents that awards up to 81 scholarshipseach year for extended stays in Germany.

Despite their long history together, thesignificance of the recent Arab Spring for thefuture of German-Egyptian cooperation isnot yet clear. What is very clear is that therevolutionary movements in Tunisia andEgypt both have a lot to do with education.Many of the demonstrators who assembled

in Tahrir Square in January 2011 were youngtertiary students or graduates whose despairat the dearth of job prospects emboldenedthem to protest against the systems in theirrespective countries.When 52 per cent of the

population is aged under 25, but youth un-employment, especially among academics,is running at 30 per cent and higher, poli-tics and the social order become explosive.

Hence education in Egypt and Tunisiaranks very high on the German govern-ment’s list of priorities for transformationalpartnership projects. In a guest editorial forthe Egyptian daily Al-Masri al-Youm in Fe-bruary this year, German foreign ministerGuido Westerwelle promised young Egyp-tians »more academic exchange opportu-nities, more scholarships and vocationaltraining initiatives«.

Similar support will be channelled to-wards Tunisia, which provides good uni-versity education and a high level of edu-

cation generally compared to other countriesin the same region. According to UNICEF,34 per cent of the Egyptian population is il-literate, while the figure for Tunisia is only22 per cent. Almost 358,000 of the country’s10.5 million citizens are currently studyingat a tertiary institute and, according to theTunisian statistics authority, about 60 percent of the students are women. With theirFrench heritage, graduates also have excel-lent command of a European language, andthey find it easier than their Egyptian coun-terparts do to get their voices heard in glo-bal economic dialogue.

But more and more Tunisian acade-mics are setting their sights on Germany,where the DAAD has been providing aprogramme aimed at top Tunisian stu-dents in engineering-related disciplinesfor the last 30 years.

Cooperation between German and Tu-nisian universities is set to become evencloser, with EUR 50 million budgeted forboth 2012 and 2013 for transformationpartnerships. Subject to approval by theGerman Bundestag, much of this moneywill be put towards cooperation at the ter-tiary level. The DAAD is preparing newtenders designed specifically to strengthenlocal structures in the long term by me-ans of university partnerships. Particularattention will be paid to quality assuran-ce for the courses offered and to the em-ployability of graduates. Germany hasmuch to offer here, as it already runs bi-cultural courses in Cairo and Amman inwhich Germans and locals study side byside to gain dual qualifications that pre-pare them for a globalised job market.

Dr Renate Dieterich heads the new DAAD

section entitled »German-Arabic Transfor-

mational Partnership – Cultural Dialogue«.

Dr Christian Hülshörster heads the DAAD

group entitled »North Africa and the Middle

East«.

DEVELOPMENT

Back to school after the Arab SpringIf the change in Egypt and Tunisia is to take hold,academics need opportunities on the job market.The German government is putting 50 million euros a year towards transformation partnerships, and much of it is going into cooperation in tertiary education by Renate Dieter ich and Chr ist ian Hülshörster

More scholarships and better qualityassurance

»Worse than drought«French group Veolia Environnement is the global leader in water management, its success based on public-private partnerships with local authorities.But customers in Morocco are rebelling,accusing Veolia of negligence and even corruption

by Mohamed Amjahid



WATER SUPPLY

The estuary of the river Bou Regreg in Rabat. A new marina is under construction here, and a comfortable tram links the

suburbs. Rabat is developing – but poor quality basic services are giving rise to protests.

picture:dge



>>

Like thousands of other residents of Rabat,Morocco’s capital city, Abdeslam Belfhil hastaken to the streets almost every Sunday for

the last six months. Belfhil is the local coordinatorfor AMDH, a Moroccan human rights organisa-tion. But these demonstrations, unlike those in ot-her Arab countries, are not about bringing down adictator. Most Moroccans hold their king in veryhigh esteem, unconditionally, uncritically. Here onthe Atlantic, at the picturesque estuary of the BouRegreg river, demonstrators are shining the spotlighton another »dark power«, one that usually representssomething good: the French utility company VeoliaEnvironnement.

»Veolia, dégage – Veolia, piss off!« – says a placard.Picking up the refrain, Belfhil says: »In Tunisia andEgypt, the people won through, and the stakes wereeven higher there!«

In Rabat,Veolia not only manages potable water andwaste water, but various divisions of the group are al-so involved in waste removal, power supply and pu-blic transport. It may not sound unusual for a city li-ke Rabat to have problems with the way public facili-ties are organised, but dissatisfaction with poor watermanagement has increased markedly in the last fewmonths.

While most coastal cities in the world are not exact-ly the best place to look for a ‘pure nature’ experien-ce, the odour in Rabat is particularly pungent. In thehistoric suburb of Salé, next to the bathing area, a hu-ge grey pipe discharges directly into the sea. »Ten yearsago,Veolia undertook, in a binding contract, not to dis-charge any more untreated waste water into the oce-an,« says Belfhil, »but nothing has changed.« The en-vironmental impact will be on a colossal scale, hewarns.

Veolia is slow to take up new, environmentallyfriendly technologies, because it thinks they will thre-aten its traditional business,« says Nikolas Weth, a wa-ste water expert who says that Veolia has turned downhis environmentally friendly waste water proposalsseveral times. Weth and his engineering firm Drausysupply a ‘green’ water purification method that is app-

lied in the pipes, before the water hits the sea. »Veo-lia isn’t interested, because conventional chemical pu-rification of waste water is its core business.« In Ra-bat, however, even the chemicals are apparently app-lied far too sparingly.

Rabat’s residents only really become aware of theproblem during the hot summer months when theygo swimming to cool off – and emerge smelling of hu-man and industrial waste. But when safe drinking wa-ter becomes more expensive, everyone is affected, espe-cially poor people. In a contract with the municipalauthority in 2002, Veolia was promised a special sup-plement of one dirham per cubic metre of water. Thespecial arrangement was limited to a 12-month peri-od, but »Veolia is still awarding itself the supplementand nobody is doing anything about it,« says MehdiLhlou, an economist from the National Institute forStatistics and Applied Economics (INSEA) in Rabat.

Since Veolia came on the scene, the price of waterhas gone up. Water is charged for by the cubic metreeverywhere in Morocco, so users pay more the morethey consume. But customers in the other main cities,including Fez and Marrakesh, where water has not yetbeen partially privatised, pay less than half as muchas those in »Veolia’s« cities, Rabat and Tangiers. InCasablanca, where Suez Environnement, the otherFrench mega-supplier of water services, operates, pe-ople are also demonstrating against privatisation.

The contracting parties agreed to the special sup-plement for Veolia in Rabat in 2002 »to finance urgentspecial investment in modernisation of the waste wa-ter network«. Lhlou says this investment has not yetbeen made, whereas the Veolia head office told zenith:»We have invested, and will continue to invest, in thewaste water system in Rabat.«

In the 1980s, when Hassan II still ruled his king-dom with an iron hand, the municipal water supplysystem was fully functional. To retain the feudal po-wer of the royal family, based on control of agricul-ture, Hassan II commissioned the building of damsthat eventually benefitted both small farmers and ci-ty dwellers. To this day he is remembered as the »Kingof Water«.

Mehdi Lhlou pines for the past, at least in this respect.He remembers Rabat’s water works as being just as pro-fitable and productive »as the London water works«.

In the mid-1990s, the city partially privatised itswaste water treatment, but a Spanish-Portuguese con-sortium failed at the task. Then Veolia stepped in. »Itwas in a bad state when they took over, but they’ve ma-de it even worse,« complains Lhlou. Water becamemore expensive and now costs 200 per cent more thanit did then, as Moroccan newspapers and magazinesincluding Tel- Quel and l’Economiste have reported.Ve-olia is unpopular further afield, too. »The managersprotect their core business with ruthless lobbying rat-her than with entrepreneurialism,« says Jean-Luc Tou-ly, a former top manager with Veolia in Paris. Toulysays he was fired in 2006 for criticising Veolia’s »cor-rupt practices« and »generally problematic businessmodel for water«, while Veolia says he has a personalvendetta against the company. Touly has since foun-ded ACME, the »Association for a Worldwide WaterContract«.

Public-private partnerships (PPP) have become po-pular with governments and private investors aroundthe world as a way of providing a variety of public ser-vices but Touly is adamant that »as far as water sup-ply is concerned, this model leaves poor people withoutaccess to clean drinking water«.

In Rabat and beyond, opponents of privatisation ofwaste water services appeal to the United NationsCharter of Human Rights, which lists access to cleandrinking water as a basic human right. At the vote inJuly 2010, France was among the countries that pres-sed for a more far-reaching text. President Sarkozy’sbusiness delegations usually include several Veolia re-presentatives and relations between the Group andthe government are excellent. With a turnover of EUR35 billion, Veolia is at the pinnacle of the water sectorworldwide and can still see many more markets toconquer. »Veolia is now looking at the Middle East, theMediterranean and, most especially, Africa,« says To-ny Clarke from the Canadian think tank »Polaris In-



Young people in Rabat protest against the power

of the water behemoth. A lone ‘Veolia = Israel’

joins the sea of ‘Veolia, piss off!’ placards.

available fresh water in billions of cubic metres, per annum

Morocco 29.0comparison value: MENA region* 198.7

consumption of available fresh water resources, as a percentage

Morocco 43.4MENA 116.7

consumption of fresh water by sector, as a percentage

agricultural use Morocco: 87.3MENA: 88.1

household use Morocco: 9.8 MENA: 8.2

industrial use Marokko: 2.9 MENA: 3.7

availability of drinking water for residents, as a percentage

urban Morocco: 99.0MENA: 96.0

rural Morocco: 56.0 MENA: 81.0

source: FAO aquastat (2008)

*MENA region: Egypt, Algeria, Bahrain, Djibouti, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Jordan,Qatar, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestinian Territories, Sau-di Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, UAE

Selected data on water supply in Morocco

picture:AC

ME

Maroc


Veolia Environnement is number one in watermanagement worldwide. Its predecessor wasthe ‘Compagnie Générale des Eaux’, founded in1853 and later taken over by the Vivendi group.In 2000, the water services segment was splitoff under the brand Veolia Environnement andlisted on the New York stock exchange, amongothers. Ten years later it had an annual turno-ver of EUR 35 billion and a net profit of EUR 580 million. The latest dividend was EUR 1.21per share. Veolia is the fifteenth-largest company in France.

jects in the region we work with reputable organisa-tions like the World Bank and the French develop-ment aid agency Proparco,« it states.

Human rights activist Belfhil is particularly disap-pointed with the city council. »We’ve been on thestreets for months calling for democracy and prote-sting against Veolia and ›politicians for rent‹, but thepeople who could do something about it are acting un-concerned, as if there weren’t any problems.«

stitute«. Clarke speaks of Veolia’s ‘carefully-thought-through approach’ to opening up new markets, whichhis institute has analysed in an unpublished study.From Nairobi to New Orleans, Milan to Sydney, the-re are distinct similarities: secret contracts runningfor decades, complaints from local human rightsgroups about restricted supply of potable water and,eventually, allegations of corruption.

The partial privatisation of Berlin’s water servicesin 1999 is a particularly well-documented case. Thethen »grand coalition« (CDU and SPD) had, in effect,created a legal basis for Veolia and contracts stayed con-fidential until a referendum by the Berlin senate for-ced disclosure. Berlin and Veolia created a new formof publicly owned enterprise, in which the city tookall the risks.

In Rabat, too, demonstrators are protesting the lackof distance between Veolia and the city’s administra-tion. »All of a sudden anyone who was pulling stringsin the deal with Veolia was living in an eye-catchingvilla,« claims Lhlou. Veolia will not tolerate such ac-cusations. »We work according to a strict code of ethicsthat does not allow corruption. To finance our pro-

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Osmosis systems: producing drinking water by seawater desalination efficiently

Mathias Brüggmann

is an editor at

Handelsblatt, a

German daily

business newspaper.

Formerly the paper’s

Moscow correspondent, he now covers

the Middle East and the Persian and

Arabian Gulf region.

From well-known German coffeebrands to JVC camcorders, Osrambulbs and Hewlett Packard toner

cartridges, if it can be bought for cash,you’ll find it in one of Teheran’s bazaars.There are goods from Europe, Japan andthe USA, despite the ever-tougher sanc-tions that the UN, EU and USA have im-posed on the regime of the mullahs. If se-cret service reports from Western coun-tries about Iranian nuclear scientistscoming closer to creating an atomic bomband announcements by Iranian agenciesregarding progress on uranium enrich-ment are to be believed, the sanctions ha-ve been ineffective, and as far as basic con-sumer goods are concerned, all they havedone is push prices up.

This shows that sanctions against Iransimply don’t make sense. Coercive mea-sures of this sort can even be totally coun-terproductive: restrictions on legal tra-

ding and, more specifically, the de factoban on all legal transactions, have forcedcommerce underground. Investigators ha-ve their work cut out for them with smug-gling and »cash-in-the-suitcase« transac-tions on the rise.

The cost of imported goods is rising asevasive transactions and the use of cashpayments instead of bank transfers pushcosts higher and higher. Ordinary people,the ones who should not be affected, aresuffering. Barely any Iranians can affordto study abroad any longer, because theycannot transfer the fee. By refusing to ad-mit Iranian high school graduates to uni-versity courses in the natural sciences, ma-ny countries are hurting both themselvesand the Iranian opposition. We, the West,are making it more difficult for manyyoung Iranians to learn about and appre-ciate life away from the strict religiouscontrol in their home country.

The cycle of cynicismThe sanctions against Iran are stupid and counterproductive – we are strangling the very people we should be supporting.Respectable business people and young,pro-Western Iranians are the ones who suffer.Is it all about not losing face?

by Mathias Brüg gmann



picture:Handelsblatt

OPINION

President Ahmadinejad tells his peoplethat the disastrous economic, social andfiscal results of current Iranian policiesare the results of Western sanctions, sothe sanctions have also backfired in thesense that they allow the Teheran regimeto divert attention from its own failures.

Gradually we are pulling the rug fromunder the feet of Iran’s medium-sizedcompanies. Already hard-pressed by thevast and steadily increasing economic ex-pansion of firms within the orbit of theRevolutionary Guard, these companies arefinding the doors to external trade clo-sing in their faces. Without access to re-placement parts from abroad, you can’tcontinue to manufacture your product.The problem is now affecting even indu-stries that could hardly be more removedfrom Iran’s controversial nuclear pro-gramme, including the production of de-tergent.

The Iranian sanctions are wrong. Thereis plenty of proof, including a study byUS economist Amanda Licht, who disco-vered that heads of state of countries af-fected by sanctions or an embargo actu-ally retain power for longer. Still there isone big question that almost nobodyseems to be able to answer: how do wefind a way out of the ruinous cycle of ever-tougher sanctions without losing face?

Why should a decent German business-man have to say goodbye to business part-ners in Iran with whom he has been trans-acting fully legal import and export dealsfor decades? What is left of the traditionof the German economy as a reliable bu-siness partner? How are the sanctions da-maging the image and standing of ourfirms in the wider region? And why are theChinese and Russians, and in some casesalso the Swedes and Americans, supplyingthings that our politicians do not allowGerman companies to supply?

The office of the German Chancellorhas stipulated a »strategy of discourage-ment«. Officials at the Federal Office ofEconomics and Export Control have beeninstructed to put Germans off doing bu-siness with Iran by deliberately delayingexport licence applications. This – com-bined with pressure from the United Sta-tes – has led to Daimler ending its coo-peration with Teheran vehicle manufac-turer Iran Khodro Diesel and stoppingassembly of the E-Class in Iran. Meanw-hile, over at Peugeot and Renault – in theadjacent building in the same factory –new models roll off the production line re-gularly. The German government is har-ming the German economy and nobodyis saying anything.

All the while, Russia is loading the di-ce. Officially, Moscow is involved in theUN sanctions, yet it was the Russian sta-te-owned company Atomstroyexport thatbuilt a nuclear power station in Bushehr,in southern Iran, and supplied the fuelrods. On the one hand, the Kremlin re-peatedly poses as an advocate for Teheranand puts off new rounds of sanctions. Onthe other, Moscow is busy making themost of the situation for its own benefit,



Why are Russians,Chinese, Swedes andAmericans supplyingwhat Germans are not allowed to?

picture:IranNew

sNow

.com

Consumer goods from JVC camcorders

to HP toner cartridges are available in

Tehran’s bazaars. Though prices have

risen, the goods are still available. But

who really benefits from the sanctions?

for as long as the Iranians remain isolated,they can do nothing more than dream ofexporting gas and participating in the Na-bucco pipeline to Europe. The Kremlin-owned Gazprom still has a monopoly onsupplies from Central Asia for the Euro-pean energy market.

It all goes to show how absurd the sanc-tions are. As Roland Popp, a Zurich rese-archer into the Middle East, puts it: »Ma-ny Western governments see sanctions asa good compromise between doing no-thing and all-out war.«

The principle of ‘low-hanging fru-its’ comes up as early as Economics101: first take care of the big cu-

stomers whose needs are easily serviced andwho will provide extensive orders in the fu-ture. But Germany’s foreign policy seems tooperate on the opposite principle: this ye-ar, Chancellor Angela Merkel visited Ke-nya, an economically irrelevant country mi-red in corruption, while Foreign MinisterGuido Westerwelle, who wants to streng-then civil society in Africa, is sensibly –though unsuccessfully – seeking contactson the continent. At least we have him tothank for the boycott that freed Benghazi!

Spain and France dispatch top politicians to supporttheir countries’businesspeople

Any atlas shows that, after the division ofSudan, Algeria has the largest surface areaof any country in Africa. Unlike every ot-her African country, however, it does notsuffer from rampant government debt butis sitting pretty on massive gold reservestotalling around USD 150 billion and foreign exchange reserves of around USD170 billion. Not only is it second only to

Libya in terms of oil and gas reserves, itis only an hour’s flight away from Italyor Spain, so that it would be possible tolay electricity cables connecting it to boththose countries to supply Europe with so-lar energy. Europe may very soon needAlgeria as a supplier, just as Algeria relieson supplies from Europe.

Furthermore, Algeria has a very positiveopinion of Germany, having received sym-pathetic/favourable support from Bonn, andthen Berlin, since its independence in 1962.

German products and workmanship arewell regarded. In March 2011, the Algeri-an government announced a renewableenergy programme involving investmentof USD 130 billion in order to provide 40per cent of the national energy require-ment from renewables by 2030. Unlike theGerman government’s energy plan, this isa realistic one: two photovoltaic plantsworth EUR 300 million each have alreadybeen commissioned. That the Algerianshold Germany in extremely high regardin such matters is evidenced by the factthat they even published an official bro-chure on renewable energies and energy ef-ficiency in the German language.

However, the first contract was awar-ded to Spain. The Spanish Prime Minister,Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, personallysupervised the tender. German companyCentrotherm AG won the second contract– entirely unaided.



Who’s afraid of Algiers?Algeria, the biggest country in Africa, wants German technology. But Berlin is deaf to signals from the Maghreb – and to calls from the commercial sector for political support.Has the Arab Spring rattled the German government to such an extent that it’s afraid to make a move?

by Chr istoph Par tsch

OPINION

Dr Christoph Partsch,

the managing director

of the German-Algerian

Chamber of Commerce,

is a lawyer specialising in company law

and corporate criminal law.

picture:private

Since March 2011, Ministers at nationaland federal state level have withheld sup-port from German businesses, while lea-ders of other states have been coming andgoing in a steady stream and flying backhome feeling very satisfied. Former FrenchPrime Minister and now Special Envoy Je-an-Pierre Raffarin, whose role includessupporting French businesses in NorthAfrica, even managed to override an un-fortunate 2009 piece of legislation accor-ding to which foreign investors may ownonly 49 per cent of a company. Becausenegotiations had begun before the law tookeffect, the French interested party was al-lowed to own the company outright.

Clearly, it is possible to find solutionsin Algeria. But Germany hangs back, over-ly cautious. Is it because Algeria has notexperienced an ‘Arab Spring’? Germanydoesn’t seem reluctant to sell Leopardtanks to Saudi Arabia, also yet to expe-rience the Spring. Yet it hesitates to lendits support to solar energy plants in Al-geria and help a struggling industry. Ber-lin is considering sponsoring delegationsof business people to Denmark to studyits public procurement system but thereare no equivalent delegations focussingon water treatment in Algeria. Could the-re possibly be change on the horizon? TheMinistry of Economic Affairs is planninga joint economic commission for March2012. This would be an opportunity tomake up for lost time, build bridges andfinally demonstrate the support from theGerman economy that Algeria has beenasking for.

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Kazakhstan is the ninth largestcountry in the world, it occupiesa key geopolitical and geo-strate-

gic position in the Central Asia region.Having celebrated the twentieth anniver-sary of the independence in 2011 we re-call various challenges related to the for-mation of our statehood, national econo-my, and civil society: our country managedto generate a firm ground for developmentand turned out to be an active participantof international relations. In 1994, grossdomestic product per capita in Kazakh-stan hardly amounted to more than USD700 – in the beginning of 2011 GDP hasgrown more than twelve times and now ex-ceeds US 9,000. Kazakh total GDP in 2010amounted to about USD 146 billion, itsannual growth having reached 7 per cent.

In the country’s development theseachievements were also backed by a deci-sion by decree of President Nursultan Na-zarbayev to close the Semipalatinsk nu-clear test site and the renouncement ofthe fourth largest nuclear arsenal in theworld as the legacy of the Soviet Union.

The European Union is one of Ka-zakhstan’s leading trade and investment

partners. In 2010, the bilateral goods tur-nover had increased by 30 per cent,amounting around USD 28 billion. Ac-cordingly in the first half of 2011, the vo-lume of bilateral trade has already rea-ched more than USD 25 billion – USD 7billion more compared to last year’s indi-cator. Since 1993 up to 2010, the total in-flow of direct investments from Europeto the Kazakh economy amounted to mo-re than USD 50 billion, including morethan USD 10 billion in 2010. In its turn,Kazakhstan is the EU’s premier tradingand investment partner in Central Asia. In2010, Kazakhstan ranked 30th on the ge-neral list of EU trade partners and 20th interms of goods supplied to the Europeanmarket.

In investments, Kazakhstan activelycooperates with the European InvestmentBank (EIB). At present, the EIB has allo-cated a framework loan in amount of EUR300 million for the Central Asian country.It has also received a mandate to investEUR 1.5 billion in Kazakhstan. Still, espe-cially in terms of interaction in the ener-gy sector, Kazakhs are interested in furtherdeepening of the cooperation.

The exports level of Kazakh hydrocarbonsin 2010 to European countries reachedUSD 10 billion. Out of a total 71 milliontons shipped out 80 per cent goes theirway. We are the third largest supplier, be-hind Russia and Norway, of energy carriersto the EU among non-OPEC countries.Last year we produced more than 2 mil-lion tons of petroleum gas – a 123 percent increase from 2009. Out of this, ab-out 1,6 million tons have been exportedto European countries.

Also in 2010 Kazakhstan, together withRussia and Belarus, established a customsunion for the common market of their»Eurasian Economic Community«. Cu-mulative GDP of three countries amountsto more than USD 3 trillion, industrialpotential is estimated to be USD 600 bil-lion, the agricultural output amounts toaround USD 112 billion and the scope ofthe consumer market comprises morethan 165 million people.

In January 2012, we will launch the»Common Economic Space« (CES) whichcan become a reliable partner for the EUas well as a bridge between Europe andthe dynamically developing countries of

Our deep beliefin helping Twenty years after his home country’s independence, Yerik Utembayev,Kazakhstan’s ambassador to the EU and Nato, sums up what he considers a remarkable success story, and explains Astana’s commitment to its regional responsibilities



SPECIAL GUEST

the Asia-Pacific region. CES will provideeasy access to production facilities of goodsand services, based on general rules andnorms, also access to natural resources,their transportation, and commodity mar-kets, as well as to new technologies. Interms of economic integration, Kazakh-stan supports the idea of establishing anEurasian union. Simultaneously, it dee-pens and enhances cooperation in the Cen-tral Asia region in bilateral formats.

In Uzbekistan, Kazakhs investmentedinto around 200 operational productionfacilities, engaged in the processing of agri-cultural products, trade, food, machine-building, light industry, metal works. The

bilateral goods turnover for 2010 amoun-ted to USD 1.6 billion and increased by31,6 per cent compared to last year.

All the while, Kazakhstan assists Kyr-gyzstan in stabilizing its internal situationand is one of its leading foreign trade part-ners. In 2010, the volume of bilateral goodsturnover was USD 590 million. In thisneighbouring country we have over 400joint ventures with the participation ofKazakh capital in the energy, transporta-tion, building materials, and banking sec-tors. Also, Kazakhstan provided humani-tarian aid to Kyrgyzstan of more than USD20 million in total.

At the same time, Astana maintains goodneighborhood relations with Beijing, too.In terms of economic cooperation in 2010,we witnessed a stable growth: bilateral

goods turnover amounted to USD 14.1billion, which for January to August 2011has already reached USD 12.2 billion. Wecontinue direct interaction with China wit-hin the framework of multilateral structu-res, particularly within the »Shanghai Coo-peration Organization« (SCO).

Since June 2011 Kazakhstan chairs theOrganization of Islamic Cooperation. Assuch it intends to promote rapprochementbetween the West and the Muslim world.

In the light of recent events in thosecountries of North Africa and the MiddleEast, the so-called »Arab spring«, who arealso members of the OIC, Kazakhstan in-tends to take part in the stabilization pro-cesses in the region and supports the coun-tries in their transition periods – with thehelp of OIC mechanisms and institutes.

Especially against the background ofthe last events having occurred in Libya,Kazakhstan considers it important tomaintain security for civilians and for therestoration of stability. Kazakhstan sup-ports the preservation of the sovereigntyand the territorial integrity of Libya, thestrict observance of national and inter-national law norms and in so doing re-spects the choice and political will of theLibyan people. Kazakhstan is ready to pro-mote the mobilization of all OIC resour-ces to render assistance in the settling ofthe situation and in overcoming the hu-manitarian crisis in Libya.

As well, Kazakhstan as OIC chair In thecontext of developing of regional coope-ration, it is necessary to note the problemof Afghanistan. Within the SCO frame-work, the member states make efforts toestablish »anti-terrorist, anti-drug and fi-nancial belts« round Afghanistan. The»SCO-Afghanistan« Contact Group hasbeen established; consultations on Afghanproblems are held on a regular basis. In Ju-



Yerik Utembayev is the

Republic of Kazakhstan’s

ambassador to Belgium

and Luxemburg, as well

as chèf de mission at

the European Union’s institutions and

Nato’s headquarters in Brussels.

To promoterapprochement between the West andthe Muslim world

picture:kazakhstanembassy.be

ly 2011, Kabul submitted an application toto grant it observer status with the SCO.Meanwhile, Kazakhstan has introducedinto the OIC’s »Astana Declaration« long-term commitments of OIC members tothe establishment of peace, stability andsocial and economic restoration of the Is-lamic Republic of Afghanistan (IRA). Forits part, the Kazakh government provideshumanitarian aid to Afghanistan on a re-gular basis. We have, for example, alloca-ted USD 2.3 million for the constructionof schools, hospitals, and roads in the IRA.

Upon President Nazarbeyev’s initiative,we continue to implement an educationalprogramme for the Afghan youth, whichenvisages the provision of training in Ka-zakhstan for 1,000 Afghan students, whowill receive civil specialties. The first groupof Afghan students, 153 persons, alreadyhas arrived in September 2010. In 2011, wehave welcomed another group of 179 stu-dents. The Kazakh government has allo-cated USD 50 million out of the nationalbudget for these purposes.

In our deep belief, such socially focu-sed and non-military projects will helpAfghanistan and its young generation toadapt to the realities of the present-dayworld and will create a stimulus for the de-velopment of a civilized state and the in-stitutes of civil society as a whole.

C asa dos Frescos, a supermarket inLuanda, went too far in January2011 when it charged USD105 for

a ‘golden melon’. Imported from Portu-gal, the fruit was no doubt delicious, butthat was not the point. The melon shot tofame as a symbol of luxury and the ex-ploding prices of imported goods in acountry known until a few years ago on-ly for its gruesome, decades-long civil war,where most people still live in poverty. Yetnewspaper headlines along the lines of‘More and more people dream of Ango-lan citizenship’, as seen recently in O Pa-ís, are not uncommon.

Now, while Europeans mired in the eu-ro crisis may dream of many things, anAngolan passport has probably never beenon their »wish list« – until recently, that is.Official statistics show that, since the warended in 2002, several hundred thousandPortuguese have applied for Angolan citi-zenship. The former Overseas Province ofAngola, which gained independence in1975 after a bloody colonial war, accordsits citizens economic privileges that arenot available to foreigners.

Rui Santos, a Portuguese with an An-golan passport who opened a ladies clo-thing boutique in Luanda a few monthsago, proudly shows us his latest offering– a wedding dress made mainly of polye-ster. »I can buy this dress in Europe foraround USD 200 and sell it here for3,000,« says Santos. With margins likethat, business is going very well, thoughmost of his income comes from proper-ty, as rents in Luanda are rising steadily.Santos also works as an agent for repre-


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»We want people to see us asa second Dubai«Luanda, the capital of Angola, is one of themost expensive cities in the world.As part of the recovery after decades of civil war, the construction industry and the consumer goods and financial sectors are attracting companies from Asia, Europe and South America.The margins are as thrilling as the circumstances with which the businesses haveto do battle daily

by Romy Rösner

The woeful lack of

infrastructure in Luanda

is hampering major

construction projects,

but the government is

sticking firmly to its plan.

sentatives for foreign companies, taking apercentage of their profits.

Angola has oil and produces nearly twomillion barrels a day. It does not produceany consumer goods or capital goods. De-mand for imported goods is high and ma-ny foreign companies have picked up onthe whiff of success in the air. Airline boo-kings are a reliable indicator – businessclass seats to Luanda are usually bookedout. The national airline, SonAir, now of-fers direct flights to Houston, Texas for theemployees of American oil companies.

There are about 300,000 Portuguese inAngola, and even more Chinese. The city’sbars are a meeting place for Brazilians,South Africans, Americans, French, Spa-nish and a few Germans. Most are male.»For families, life is better in Portugal. It’snot so dirty there and the infrastructureand schools are better,« says Eliseu Gaspar,himself an Angolan and the vice-presidentof the Angolan Industrial Association(AIA). His wife and children live in Lisbon.

Anyone who intends to stay in Luandamore than briefly, and has the means, findsa home in Luanda Sul. The only downsi-de to living in this elegant suburb is thatif you work in the CBD, you have to leavehome at dawn to beat the traffic. Luandalabours under the weight of impossiblenumbers of vehicles and a serious lack ofinfrastructure. Presidential adviser José Se-verino, who owns a timber factory and se-veral companies that manufacture super-ior furniture, came up with a way of avo-iding the stressful commute: he and hiswife moved into an apartment in the cen-tre of the city, right next to the head offi-

ce of the Angolan oil company Sonangol.The apartment is on the 10th floor of anunappealing building whose lift has notfunctioned for many years. Water is deli-vered by tanker. Things are no better inhis office, only 300 metres away. WhenChinese labourers were working on thebuilding next door, they cut the wrong wi-re and there was no electricity for twoweeks. When he’s not walking to visit abusiness contact, Severino likes to drive

the dark blue Audi the president gave him.Traffic lights and street signs are a new ad-dition to the Luanda cityscape. Severino islucky: he is well known and no corruptpolice officer would dare sting him with a»warning fee« for turning when he wasn’tsupposed to, something that foreign ma-nagers have to put up with all the time.

Luanda feels frenzied and dynamic. Talloffice buildings and luxury hotels arespringing up everywhere you look in thecentre of town. But the standard of livingis not great and there is no cultural life tospeak of. Still, there is a cinema, housed inthe »Belas Shopping« centre. And the go-vernment is very proud of the way thingsare developing. It launched a plan fortransforming the capital in 2008. AndréMingas, the presidential adviser for townplanning, unveiled the model for the visionin a television interview, saying: »We wantpeople to think of us the way they thinkof Dubai – with amazement and curiosi-ty.« Upgrading »Marginal«, the waterfrontpromenade, will be the cornerstone of theredevelopment.

Angola’s reconstruction is being financedby China, which has provided more thanUSD 10 million in loans over the last 10years. In exchange, contracts are awarded toChinese companies, which keep costs downby housing their Chinese employees at theconstruction site rather than providing ex-pensive accommodation elsewhere. Ango-lan workers don’t even get a look-in.



>>

»We’re sorry, but the consulate does not have internetaccess today«

Street signs are virtually non-existent, even in the centre of Luanda. Foreigners ma-

king false turns become the target of police officers raking in »warning fees«.

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Brazilian construction group Odebrecht isone of the largest construction companiesin Angola, and another Brazilian compa-ny operates a sugar cane plantation forbiofuel production. The locals are fonderof the Brazilians than they are of the Chi-nese, not least because they employ An-golan workers and train their employees.Third in the popularity stakes is SouthAfrica, the former enemy. South AfricanPresident Jacob Zuma visited Angola in2009 accompanied by more than ten ofhis ministers. The French president cametoo, in 2008. After the »Angolagate« con-troversy over French weapons deliveriesduring the civil war, the relationship bet-ween France and Angola had been strained,but Luanda acknowledged the visit fromParis by showing greater appreciation ofFrench companies.

German authorities are well aware thatpolitical gestures are the key to winning cu-stomers. Trade between Angola and Ger-many quadrupled between 2005 and 2008.When President José Eduardo dos Santosvisited Germany in February 2009, the Mi-nisters of Economic Affairs of both coun-tries signed a joint declaration on closertrade relations. According to local civil ser-vants, Angola’s minister, Manuel NunesJúnior, was pretty grumpy about it. Nego-tiations on the wording of the agreementcontinued right up until the night beforeit was signed, and the whole thing nearlycollapsed at the last minute.

A second agreement was to have beensigned during Angela Merkel’s visit in Ju-ly 2011, but this time it was Luanda thatdetermined the pace of the summit. Thechancellor’s delegation left without havingaccomplished its mission, leaving the am-bassador to finish the job, those in theknow revealed later.

The signals are perfectly clear: Luandaexpects Berlin to show more goodwill,and much, if not all, depends on deci-sions made by the government. Ultima-tely, the offices of the Delegation of Ger-man Industry and Commerce were ope-ned only because President dos Santosapproved the project personally duringhis official visit to Germany. There arenot enough funds and staff available toestablish German institutions and initi-atives over the long term, it is claimed. Atthe annual »German-Angolan EconomicForum«, held since 2008, »it’s usually thecase that while several Angolan ministerstravel to the event, you will hunt in vaineven for one German minister,« com-plains one Luanda business representati-ve. There may be a state secretary, at thevery most. At this year’s forum in Mu-nich, some participants were outragedwhen the state of Bavaria sent only thehead of a section within its Ministry ofEconomic Affairs. The significance of herrelatively lowly status was not lost on theAngolan guests.

The lack of political support is not theonly problem for companies wanting todo business in Angola. Getting a basic30-day visa can take weeks. The processis complicated and has become even trik-kier in recent years. Not infrequently,consulate staff blame the intermittentInternet connection with Luanda. Ango-la does not issue multiple-entry visas, soapplications for the second and third vi-sa are lodged with the consulate even be-fore the first trip. Of course, a work visais required if you want to do business.By the time the visa is finally approved,up to two years after the first application,the EUR 1,000 fee is considered forgot-ten, but only for employees of Angolancompanies or those who operate theirown branch in Angola.

C. Woermann has been involved in An-gola since 2005 selling construction equip-



Whoever brings themost ministers is thewinner

An offshore drilling platform off the coast of Angola. The oil company brings its em-

ployees from Houston, Texas, into Luanda on charter flights.

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ment, generators and the like. Businesswent well – until the 2009 financial crisis.Angola suffered from the fall in the priceof oil to a much greater extent than any ot-her southern African country. The go-vernment fell behind in repayments to thetune of billions of dollars. Major projectswere put on ice. C.Woermann, which nowemploys 100 Angolans, is still waiting foroverdue accounts to be paid. »Construc-tion projects are taking a long time to getgoing again, and you couldn’t say that the-re is a new boom,« says Detlev Woermann,the managing partner of the Hamburg pa-rent company.

Meanwhile, members of the elite grouparound President Santos, which controlsmost of the private sector, are doing fine.The big players, including numerous for-mer generals, have billions in the bank.The middle and lower classes have a secu-re income in the form of ‘gazoza’ – thesmall bribes that are par for the course inAngola but more likely to make life a mi-sery for businesses than to help them getaround the bureaucracy. Even Daimler AG

was suspected, in 2010, of having bribedseveral Angolan civil servants. A formerAngolan general, Manuel Hélder Vieira,nicknamed ‘Kopelipa’ is alleged to haveobtained ‘priority commercial property forthe company. ‘Kopelipa’ is the main sha-reholder of the Angolan subsidiary of Mer-cedes. In 2005, Volkswagen AG put its plansfor an assembly plant in Angola on icewhen the former chief of VW subsidiarySkoda, Helmut Schuster, was caught tryingto line his own pockets by means of que-stionably structured companies.

Such incidents are not the only reason whynearly all expat companies are regardedwith suspicion. This year, a document pu-blished by the »Informationsstelle Südli-ches Afrika« (Southern African Informa-tion Centre) suggested that almost all theGerman companies with a presence in An-gola were involved in »dirty deals«. The

authors did not provide any evidence forthe accusations, and former Bundesbankpresident Ernst Welteke, now consultingto an Angolan bank, turned to the legalsystem to prevent the report being pu-blished.

Chancellor Merkel’s visit to Luanda wasan opportunity for Welteke to get togetherwith old acquaintances, but the delegationdid not even stay a full 24 hours. RicardoGerigk, Head of the Delegation of GermanIndustry and Commerce in Luanda, wouldhave liked to combine the visit with an eco-nomic forum. »What the Angolans reallywant is great spectacles. A German chan-cellor and 100 German companies in An-gola would have been a great spectacle pic-ture,« says a disappointed-looking Gerigk.

At least Merkel managed to fit in a bu-siness breakfast and a meeting with Presi-dent Santos before laying the foundationstone of a building for airline caterer LSGSky Chefs. The German government hadbeen searching for a »visible investment« fora while and the new building, right next tothe international airport, fitted the bill.



Corruption suspectedeverywhere

activity and forecasts

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

population (in millions) 18.0 18.5 19.0 19.6 20.2

current account balance (in USD billions) 7.2 -7.6 7.3 11.9 7.9

investment rate (as a percentage of GDP) 16.2 15.2 11.6 12.7 12.8

change from previous year, as a percentage:

current account balance 8.5 -10.0 8.9 12.0 7.3

inflation rate 12.5 13.7 14.5 15.0 13.9

imported goods and services 45.6 7.4 -20.6 13.6 20.3

exported goods and services 27.3 22.4 -35.0 24.0 45.7

source: IWF (World Economic Outlook September 2011)

Selected economic data for Angola

gross domestic product in billion US dollars

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

84.2 75.5 82.5 99.3 109.0

change from previous year, as a percentage

13.8 2.4 3.4 3.7 10.8

source: IWF (World Economic Outlook September 2011)

PETROLEUM

zenith: Dr Mayuf, you havespent more than two decades workingin the Libyan oil industry.Abdeljalil Mohamed Mayuf: I started wor-king for AGOCO in the early nineties. InQaddafi’s Libya the oil sector was undervery strict control of the state. The Natio-nal Oil Company, NOC, established in theseventies, has dominated the industry evenbefore the Ministry of Energy was abolis-hed in 2000. The NOC was in charge of allsales of Libyan energy resources, as well asregulating the legal and operational fra-mework for those foreign companies whichworked in Libya. After the end of sanc-tions access to oil and gas resources oftenbecame the question of loyalty or toleran-ce towards the Qaddafi regime. ShukriGhanem, then president of NOC, was of-

ten returning from his trips to Europe,Americas, Asia with contracts concludedon terms only known to him and a few ot-her officials from the government. You see,no transparency, no clarity. All we had todo was to deliver – not discuss or even un-derstand, what government policy in theoil and gas sector was.

Yet the years leading up to the revolutionwere particularly good for the Libyanenergy sector – new contracts, licenses,projects ...Yes, but please don’t forget that we weresubjected to international sanctions for al-most thirty years! While other oil-produ-cing countries were building their econo-mies we spent our money on Soviet-ma-de weapons and armaments. Much of our


C O M M O D I T E S

»It would be very difficult for Russians and Chinese«

picture:private

Abdeljalil Mohamed Mayuf, information director of Libya’s Arab Gulf Oil Company,about old deals, new partners, and the demise of the National Oil Companyinter v iew: Alexander von Hahn

»We need tosee benefits

for the Libyanpeople«

C O M M O D O T I E S

production assets need total replacementor modernization, we need new technolo-gical solutions, new infrastructure, we needto step up the exploration. Only thirty percent of Libya has been explored so far.

Which means you need to get as muchforeign investment as possible.This seems to be problematic taking into consideration the current state ofaffairs in the country, devastated by the civil war.I don’t think you have to ask me why wehad to do it, why we had to get rid ofQaddafi and his people. Yes, from the eco-nomic point of view war is not the bestremedy. We have lost almost half of oilproduction and now have to spend mil-lions to catch up. But AGOCO suppor-

ted the revolution from the start by pro-viding moral and financial help to the re-bels. We gave them food, transportation,shelter. From the start we were the revo-lution’s driving force.

The »AGOCO revolution«? You may say that. We have made every-thing possible for the revolution to suc-ceed, including most of the financial assi-stance needed. We were selling oil alreadyin March, even earlier, from February 21,from the very beginning. Under Qaddafiwe were not allowed to trade and we hadno experience in it. But where was no ti-me to waist, and we built a team of traderswho – often by telephone book and inter-net – were able to find buyers for our pro-ducts. And it was vital for us to keep con-

trol over Brega and Ras Lanuf refineries.That was the task for our new army andour field commanders.

Did it take long to find buyers? Not really. People were willing to help us.From all over the world – traders from Ame-rica, Switzerland, other countries. We stillwork with them today because now we areimporting oil products to the country, notonly selling oil. We are a big trading com-pany, providing new Libya with all it needs.

An »oil trader from Switzerland« – do you mean Glencore? Yes, Glencore, and Dutch company Vitol.

Moving on to the future Libya: what role,do you think, will the NOC play in the

Dr Abdeljalil Mohamed Mayuf is spokesman for the Arab

Gulf Oil Company (AGOCO), founded in 1979 as a

subsidiary of Libya’s National Oil Company. Its oil fields

are in the east of the country, its head office in Benghazi.

Before the uprising, the company was producing 40 per cent

of Libya’s oil. In March 2011 it broke away from Gaddafi.

»All we had to dowas to deliver –not discuss oreven understand,what govern-ment policy was«


national oil sector? Actually, I don’t see the NOC playing anyrole at all. In fact just two months ago we-’ve petitioned the Transitional Council toabolish the NOC and, instead, create a Mi-nistry of Oil and Gas.

So you started to think about the futurelong before the end of the revolution? We – and by that I mean not only AGO-CO, but also other companies and unionsthat signed that petition – asked Ali Tar-houni and Mustafa Abdul Jalil to considerreplacing the NOC with an governmentinstitution responsible for the overall ad-ministration of the industry: legal, techni-cal and safety regulations, environmentalcontrol, issuing licenses for the explora-tion of new fields, development of infra-structure. At the same time every compa-ny will be responsible for production andwill be accessing the markets directly, rat-her than through an intermediary.

Might it as well be that the »cancellation«of the NOC will bring about the revisionof existing business arrangements – noNOC, no contracts? I don’t think it’s possible. Of cause, in so-me cases, the revision might be necessary.Like the contracts signed between the NOCand the Russian company Gazprom. Ican’t comment on the current state of ne-

gotiations, but I am sure it would be verydifficult for the Russians and the Chineseto have new agreements or concessionswork in Libya after supporting Qaddafi tillthe end.

Wouldn’t it better to let the pastbe the past? Another problem are the Libyan assets inRussia and China. We have practically noinformation about them. Others providedus with quite an accurate account, but wehave practically no information from the-se two countries. This may prove to be an-other miscalculation on their behalf.

But you welcome Western oil companiesand are willing to open up the countryfor Western capital? Of course. We need investment, we needexpertise and know-how. Currently, we ha-ve seven national oil companies and an-other thirty service companies. It is not aproblem to have another few enterprisesdeveloping oil and gas fields – Libya has alot of potential and everyone is welcome.The only criteria are the benefit of the Li-byan people and our long-term economicdevelopment. Only two weeks ago I visi-ted the German company Wintershall, theirconcession in the Libyan desert. They’ve al-ready resumed production and now arepumping out 60,000 barrels a day of cru-

de oil. This is fine, though before the re-volution they were pumping out twice asmuch.

The oil produced has to be delivered tointernational market. Is it sold by you? Yes, because so far no one else is exportingLibyan oil. Only through the AGOCO ter-minal in Tobruq.

And how do you distribute the profit? We remain the only importer of gasoline,diesel and naphta to Libya – it costs a lotto supply the whole country. Then AGO-CO also has to pay back something liketwo billion dollars of credit which was gi-ven to us to import oil products duringthe revolution. The rest goes to the provi-sional government and, indeed, to our ac-count to pay salaries and other related ex-penses. At the moment we produce almost250,000 barrels per day. Before the revo-lution that used to be 425,000. The who-le of Libya currently produces only 540,000barrels per day. During the war many oilwells were closed and the process of re-opening may take time – two or threemonths. Currently, AGOCO opens ten totwenty wells per week and we expect toreach the 400,000 barrels per day level byFebruary. So, our financial situation willimprove dramatically.

Will a new Libyan government, as soonas it is formed, continue signing produc-tion sharing agreements, or will it be ta-king the path chosen by the new Iraqi go-vernment, which, instead of PSAs,awards service agreements? This remains to be seen. At the momentthere’s not much thinking about the waythe Libyan economy will be run. We’ve justmanaged to succeed with our revolution –people haven’t yet started to think aboutthe future economic policy. Politics – yes.


C O M M O D I T E S

picture:private

»Actually, I don’t see the National Oil Companyplaying any role at all«

C O M M O D O T I E S

Don’t you think the break-up of the NOC will lead to the break-up of Libya into independent or semi-independent regions with theirown oil based economies, their own tribal and social life? I don’t think so. After all, this is the first ti-me we’re able to build a democratic Libya,which can afford many political partiesand oil companies, a diversified industrybase. You know, energy is not the only wayout of poverty. We have great potential fortourism, agricultural development, infra-structure. And we have many partnersaround the world willing to support andwork with us.

The Global Charter BrokerYour wish is our passion

www.lhcharter.com

“Anything at all, we provide it.”

»A democratic Libya can afford many politicalparties and oil companies«

What about a privatization of AGOCO? An IPO in London, perhaps? We don’t discuss it now, but it is an inter-esting topic. All depends on the policy ofthe government which is to be formed.And not only a government – we have toelect a parliament and to create, not re-form, a new political system. The role ofthe energy sector is important, but it hasto serve the interests of the nation.

Economy – perhaps a little later. Regardingthe form of our future cooperation withthe oil majors: during the last five years weused to sign exploration and productionsharing agreements with many Westerncompanies. Perhaps we will do the same infuture. But what’s important is the way the-se contracts will be concluded and execu-ted. We need transparency, we need to seebenefits for the Libyan people, not for onefamily or the group of people.

T housands died, tens of thousandswere left homeless, and an areatwice the size of Germany disap-

peared under water when a devastatingflood struck much of Pakistan just over ayear ago. Hundreds of thousands of hec-tares of cotton fields, representing almost30 per cent of last year’s harvest, were de-stroyed. As a result, the steadily increasingprice of the most sought-after textile in theworld rose even faster, quadrupling withintwo years. In March, the price of cotton onthe world market reached a record USD212 per bale. It has now stabilised at a re-latively high level, settling at just over USD100 per bale.

After last year’s patchy performance, thetextiles sector worldwide is expecting the2011/12 harvest to be the biggest in years.According to estimates by the Internatio-nal Cotton Advisory Committee (ICAC),which represents 42 cotton-producingcountries, Pakistan is expected to produ-ce 2.3 million tonnes of ‘white gold’, an in-crease of just on 20 per cent after the night-mare of 2010. Pakistan is the world’sfourth-largest producer; only China, In-dia, and the USA harvest more cotton.Matching the increased supply comes aconstant increase in demand. The ICACestimates that approximately 24.7 milliontonnes of cotton will be processed in2011/12. Despite the growing competition

from artificial fibres, whose profile is gro-wing in the textiles sector, this would me-an a 1.5 per cent increase on the previousseason. However, the ICAC estimates ha-ve not factored in the possibility of theworld economy slowing down, whichcould depress demand.

Despite starting from a better basis thanin 2010, Pakistan’s cotton and textiles in-dustry faces problems. Bizarrely, despitelast year’s floods, there is now too little wa-ter, and most cotton plantations requireirrigation. Long-term statistics show thataverage rainfall is decreasing, while the pri-ce of fuel for the pumps and generators re-quired for irrigation is going up. To makematters worse, many hours are lost to po-wer blackouts that make it impossible to

run textiles factories profitably. The un-stable security situation makes foreign in-vestors wary of becoming involved in theIndus region.

Textiles are critical to Pakistan’s econo-mic development. The textiles sector ge-nerates more than half of the country’s ex-port earnings but Islamabad essentially ig-nores it. The government has not yet takenany measures to prevent a repeat of thecatastrophic floods. Dykes are still not highenough and are in need of repair, and the-re are still no flood-plain areas that couldrelieve other areas in the event of an emer-gency. The government has either not clai-med donations promised by other coun-tries for flood protection or has not app-lied the money for that purpose. In asituation where global warming meansthat extreme weather events like those of2010 will become more frequent, it is on-ly a matter of time before the next dis-astrous flood along the Indus.

If even only part of Pakistan’s cottonharvest were to fail, consumers in Germa-ny would notice. »Because of the highworldwide demand, we don’t have the op-tion of turning to another country to sup-ply us,« explains Felix Ebner from Ger-many’s national textiles and fashion asso-ciation. Margins are low, and that meansthat customers and consumers will soonstart to »feel the pain« of price rises.


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TEXTILE INDUSTRY

Challenge the IndusOne year after the great flood, Pakistan’s cotton exporters have recovered astonishingly fast and well.But there is sure to be another flood soon – and Pakistan is not prepared for it by Chr istoph Sydow

The next rise in the price of cotton is

just around the corner.

Libya’s health system, a leaky ship even before the civil war, due to the failures of the Gaddafi regime, is now a complete wreck. The market abounds with opportunities – and risk – for hospitalconstruction companies and medical technologysuppliers. The number one priority, however,is emergency aid for Libyans themselves


H E A LT H C A R E

D espair isn’t quite the right word, but the-re is a sense of desperation in the wordsof Abdelminam Benhalim as he describes

the state of the health system in his native Libya.With decades of experience as an anaesthetist in ho-spitals there, he came out of retirement instantlywhen the revolution against political leader Mu-ammar al-Gaddafi broke out. Now a member ofthe crisis unit in the Ministry of Health establishedby the transitional government, he spends his da-ys trying to organise treatment in other countriesfor severely injured patients and track down me-dical supplies for hospitals.

»Everywhere you look, there’s a gap,« says Ben-halim. »We don’t even have enough plaster.« Ma-ny laboratories are not operating because they ha-ve no supplies. »We can’t even get simple blood testreports. We have the equipment, but not the cons-umables.«

The civil war has put the Libyan health systemto the ultimate test. Caring for 10,000 injured pe-ople is a Herculean task for a country with verylittle experience of war, especially when there areongoing power blackouts and occasional shootoutsin the cities. At the peak of the battles there werereports of hundreds of rotting corpses in the ho-spitals. Some places did not even have running wa-ter. Basic medical care was weak before the war andfell apart afterwards, reported the World HealthOrganisation (WHO) in mid-2011. The system wasnot even managing to treat war casualties, let alo-

ne carry out simple procedures like vaccinationsand routine examinations.

»The situation is absolutely miserable,« says AbuBakr Traina, the medical coordinator in Misrata,the city that was besieged by Gaddafi’s troops for se-veral months. »We don’t have enough beds, enoughmedicine, or enough staff.« The main hospital hasbeen destroyed and there are no specialist hospitals.In the entire city, there are only110 beds for trauma patients anda pathetic nine intensive care beds.New cases arrive from the frontevery day, usually 50 or 60, butsometimes as many as 200. Ap-proximately 12,000 people have been injured in thefighting in Misrata and the surrounding area sinceFebruary. In order to help as many people as pos-sible, doctors usually operate on patients the daythey arrive and send them home the next.

Because of the lack of facilities and supplies, tho-se in charge have opted for large-scale evacuations.Every second day or so, the injured are sent abroad.So far, Traina says, 2,600 people have been sent to»Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia, Malta, Greece, Turkey and Ita-ly. All those countries are looking after our patients.«


H E A LT H C A R E

The Libyan patientby Chr istoph Dreyer

»We don’t even haveenough plaster«

>>

Many of the injured were treated across the

border in Tunisia and hospitals there are

still overloaded. »Médecins Sans Frontières«

are providing emergency services.picture:M

édecinsSans

Frontières

But Libya’s closest neighbours are overwhelmed bythe needs. Around 500 seriously injured patients inTunisia are reportedly still waiting for help that isnowhere to be found. During a visit to Libya inOctober, Germany’s Minister of the Economy, Phil-ipp Rösler, promised to accept some war casualtiesin Germany; the first have since arrived.

The problems in the Libyan health system areexacerbated by the fact that thousands of doctorsand nurses, including the foreigners who had beenplugging human resources gaps in the system foryears, fled before the war began. There is a serious

and chronic shortage of qualifiednurses, due to the lack of propertraining courses. »We don’t havespecialists for the operations weneed to do – neurosurgeons, va-scular surgeons, orthopaedic sur-

geons,« says Traina. »And we urgently need quali-fied intensive care nurses.«

Libya’s health system was desultory even beforethe civil war, though there were some praisewor-thy accomplishments under Gaddafi. The publicsystem provided free medical care for all citizens.There was comprehensive obstetric care and suc-

cessful vaccination campaigns against polio, me-asles, tetanus and whooping cough, among others.In 2009, life expectancy was 72, and the infant mor-tality rate of 19 in 1,000 live births was not even athird of the international average.

Efforts to establish the private health care sectorwere half-hearted. The World Health Organisation,reporting on a comprehensive survey undertakenin 2007, criticised inconsistent rules that createdan unpredictable environment that was preventingprivate hospitals from investing. Specialist hospi-tals gained operating permits, but the criteria forthe awarding of permits and for subsequent in-spections were vague.

Behind these occasionally acceptable perfor-mance indicators lay a health system plagued withuncertainty, corruption and shortages. Specialistcare outside the main cities was so patchy that so-me Libyans never got to see an optician or derma-tologist, Benhalim tells us.

It was not uncommon for specialist hospitals tobe closed for years on end for construction work;money often ran out after a project had begun. So-metimes the actual goal was simply to open a pro-ject officially on Revolution Day, even if there we-re not enough staff to man it, says Benhalim. AndTraina describes how Gaddafi’s legacy makes theproblems in Misrata even worse. »We are the third-largest city in Libya, with a population of 450,000,but our main hospital was closed for renovationsfor five years. Just when it was beginning to be func-tional again, it was destroyed by Gaddafi’s tanks.That’s why there’s no actual hospital here.«

Family medicine has always been deficient in Li-bya, so during peacetime, many Libyans went tohospitals and specialist clinics with minor com-plaints, monopolising capacity that should havebeen allocated to more serious cases.

Added to that were the long-term consequencesof the sanctions against the Gaddafi regime duringthe 1980s. Standards fell because Libyan doctors,who had received very good training initially, we-re unable to go abroad for professional develop-ment. For years now, WHO has been noting shor-tages in certain specialties, including cardiology,radiology and anaesthesia, as well as a lack of qua-lified nurses.


H E A LT H C A R E

Dependenton hospital tourism

Doctors of the »International Medical Corps«, on a

rescue ship, stabilising a patient who was injured in

the siege of Misrata in May.

picture:UN

HC

R/

Hélène

Caux

Many Libyans therefore opted for medical tourism.The government even provided LYD60 million(EUR 35 million) towards such trips every year,WHO said in its 2007 report, and this was supple-mented by personal funds. »Basically, medical ca-re could not have functioned without hospital tou-rism,« says Bassam Helou of Transumed, a compa-ny based in Koblenz, Germany, that builds turnkeyhospitals. Before the revolution, he was negotia-ting to build several multidisciplinary specialist ho-spitals, as his contacts said that there was much stillto be done in their country – not least because tre-atments abroad did nothing to provide emergen-cy care for those still in Libya.

The arbitrary nature of the regime was a furtherproblem. »There was no real hospital planning, just›personal gifts‹ from the Gaddafi family,« explainsHelou. »Overnight, it would be decided that certainfirms from certain countries should construct a cer-tain project.« The contractors were expected to startconstruction immediately. »A lot of projects were bu-ilt to shell stage but were never operational.«

Such imponderables created immeasurable riskfor foreign investors. »There was no statutory fra-mework. You might be given a work permit at thebeginning, but a few months later, they would de-cline to issue you with an entry permit. That un-predictability deterred investors.«

As head of Transumed, Helou hopes that thenew government will provide better legal regulationof investment opportunities, and that he can ma-ke progress on projects that were at the planningstage before the revolution. »I see opportunities forGerman companies,« says Helou. »I can imagine itbecoming a very promising market, especially fordiagnostics, paediatrics, metabolic disorders, acu-te care and cardiology. There are some great busi-ness opportunities in those areas.«

The heavily centralised procurement system hasalso proved problematic over the last few months.Before the revolution, medicines and medical pro-ducts were ordered by Tripoli and distributed throug-hout the country. Supplies on hand locally were verylimited. In the chaos of war, it became even more dif-ficult to obtain specialised medication for diabeticsand cancer patients. WHO believes that, months af-ter the war, the cupboard is bare no matter what

you are looking for: insulin, antiretroviral drugs, che-motherapy supplies, immunosuppressants, psychia-tric medication, vaccinations, blood products, labo-ratory materials, dialysis supplies or laboratory cons-umables. »Our dialysis equipment comes fromabroad,« says Traina, of his facilities in Misrata. »Theequipment still works, but we don’t have any spareparts, and we don’t have the rightdialysis fluid.«

Circumstances forced medicaltechnology companies that havebeen in Libya long term to switchto providing emergency assistan-ce. Otto Bock Healthcare, a medium-sized compa-ny from Duderstadt in Lower Saxony, Germany, forexample, has been involved in Libya for 20 yearsand has built three centres in Tripoli and Bengha-zi, where 50 to 60 orthopaedic technicians adjustarm and leg prostheses to their patients’ individu-al needs. Before the war, perhaps two or three thou-sand prostheses were needed per year, estimates thefirm’s regional representative, Karl Heinz Burghardt.Now there are hundreds more people whose limbshave been amputated because of war-related inju-ries. The exact numbers are unknown.

»Each technician can make about two prosthe-ses per week,« Burghardt estimates. With the cur-rent staffing level, it will take a very long time to helpall the amputees who need prostheses. Otto BockHealthcare is considering bringing in techniciansfrom Egypt and Tunisia to help it work through thebacklog more quickly.

Helou has also shifted his sights to emergencymedical assistance and is trying to organise treat-ment in Germany for children with complex inju-ries. In his view, Germany should make a move inthe diplomatic arena to make up for abstaining fromthe UN resolution on military intervention in Li-bya. »In Libya, we got the impression at the begin-ning that Germany did not back the revolution.«

Any country seen to be lagging behind with in-vestment, waiting until the situation has stabilisedpolitically, is running the risk of achieving quite theopposite. »You can’t wait until everything is in pla-ce,« says Helou. »People need help now. If this re-volution fails, it won’t be easy to argue against theradical forces.«


H E A LT H C A R E

Triage for investments

sign and user friendliness, but the com-pany finds it almost impossible to matchthe prices of its Asian competitors, sinceproducts of this type are usually compa-tible only with others from the same ma-nufacturer, which pushes prices up evenfurther. Eppendorf ’s latest annual reportshows less than 2.9 per cent of turnover,approximately EUR 1.3 million, comingfrom the Middle East.

There are now dozens of manufactu-rers, particularly in the Indian subconti-nent, supplying Middle Eastern marketswith cheap laboratory equipment. Some,like The Life Sciences Delhi, supply turn-key laboratory set-ups from freezers tohigh-performance centrifuges, all ‘Made inIndia’ and available 24/7 on the companywebsite in Arabic. They benefit fromstrong links with laboratory customersworldwide via portals like tradeindia.com.It is worth remembering too, that manypeople working at UAE biotech companieseither have family roots in India or studiedat an Indian university.

Sanjida Ahmed from Eastern Biotech fol-lowed a different path – she studied in Ja-pan. In her opinion, changing mores in so-ciety may make Dubai even more attracti-ve in future: »Abortion is legally prohibited,but public hospitals are becoming moreand more flexible about making exceptionsfor special circumstances,« she says. If po-litics permit, the situation in Dubai may de-velop along the same lines as in the Ne-therlands, which has accommodated thou-sands of women from countries with strictanti-abortion laws since the early 1980s.So there is potential for the medical tou-rism market segment to grow.


H E A LT H C A R E

Good genes required for DubaiLife sciences are one of the best performing sectors in the United Arab Emirates.A free trade zone and the liberal legal framework are attracting giants in the field,mainly from India

by Nils Metzger

The term »life sciences« is a clumsyone, covering as it does both thepractical scientific side and the en-

gineering and process technology aspectsof the biosciences. Researchers and tech-nicians develop multidisciplinary labora-tory equipment and optimise work pro-cesses. While Germany is occupied withdiscussions about controversial patentsfor gene sequences, the Arab states of thePersian Gulf are pulling out all the stopsto build the region’s reputation as a basefor high-tech companies.

DuBiotech, an industrial estate ownedby the government company Dubai Hol-ding, has attracted the largest number ofcompanies since 2005. Fifty-two compa-nies, ranging from local dentistry researchlaboratories to pharmaceutical companiesMerck and Pfizer, have now set up shop inthe tax-free desert setting.

Eastern Biotech, another new arrival, isthe region’s largest supplier of genetic in-vestigative procedures. Its success is a ty-

pical example of the way the authoritieshandle these matters: engaged couples inthe United Arab Emirates are now requi-red to be tested for hereditary diseases andgenetic defects before they marry, whichguarantees a steady stream of lucrativebusiness for screening suppliers. »The keyquestion at the moment is how to reducecosts and make screening more effective,«says Sanjida Ahmed, who heads up thecompany’s research section. The bulk ofthe operating costs in laboratories comefrom equipment that wears out, like pi-pettes and gene sequencers, as well asconsumables for the series of tests.

Hamburg specialist equipment manu-facturer Eppendorf is the largest Germancompany operating in the Emirates, eventhough the main role of its Dubai branchis simply to coordinate business rela-tionships with its licenced dealers in theregion. As many awards from professionalbodies confirm, Eppendorf ’s products areprime examples of innovative product de-

Asian companiesundercut Eppendorf

BIOTECH

Saudization overdue?The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is investing billions in the building of new hospitals and reforming training for health professionals

For the last year, Saudi Arabia’s he-alth policy has been to ensure thatthe majority of workers in the he-

alth sector are locals. Until recently, thesituation has been quite different: »In Sau-di Arabia a Westerner emerging from ananaesthetic haze after surgery might for amoment imagine he is back in his homestate,« says British newspaper The Tele-graph in the »Expat guide to Saudi Arabia«on its website.

This is partly because half of all SaudiArabian student nurses drop out of trai-ning. The lowly status of nurses is such apressing problem for Saudi Arabia that the»National Dialogue«, an initiative by theroyal family to promote internal reform, isaddressing the matter. According to SabahAbu Zanada, an expert from the Saudi

Commission for Health Specialties, fami-lies withdraw all support from a woman ifshe decides to become a nurse.

Moving away from out-dated methods

Nevertheless, Saudi Arabia is still payingfor expertise from outside and internatio-nal employment agencies are jam-packedwith positions vacant for doctors. A studyby the »German Orient Institute« in March2011 noted, however, that change is underway in nursing training. Training is mo-ving away from frontal instruction by ateacher at the front of a classroom to in-corporating more practical componentsand using English as the language of in-struction so that nurses will be able to com-municate with foreign doctors.

The Kingdom is also investing substantiallyin infrastructure. The 55,000 beds in the exi-sting 400 or so hospitals will not be enoughfor a population that is expected to grow to29 million by 2015. 19 per cent of the natio-nal budget is now spent on health care, withUSD 18 billion set aside for the building of121 new smaller specialist hospitals and therenovation of 66 existing such hospitals, ac-cording to a Ministry of Health plan relea-sed in June. It’s an open door for manufac-turers of medical equipment. Indeed, im-mediately following last year’s NationalDialogue, Health Minister Abdullah al-Rabiascored such a substantial increase to his bud-get that the German medical journal Ärzte-Zeitung could not resist rubbing its hands inglee as it announced: »Saudi Arabia a mag-net no longer only for pilgrims.« mmo

NURSING CRISIS


H E A LT H C A R Epicture:N

UP

CO

Officials from the Saudi National

Procurement Company for

Medical Supplies: medical supplies

and technology can be bought in,

but what about nurses?


H E A LT H C A R E

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A North German treatment for Arabia Federal state Lower Saxony and its most succesful health care provider, Otto Bock, jointly lead up to the Middle East’s trade fair »Arab Health« with a special event of their own

The second »German-Arabic Sym-posium on Advanced Orthopae-dic Treatment Concepts« will be

held on 22 and 23 January in Dubai wit-hin the framework of the Arab Health2012. During two days, international phy-sicians, therapists, orthopaedic technici-ans, and manufacturers will be broughttogether for an open discussion of the la-test developments in the field.

This event, taking place for the secondtime, has been initiated by the North Ger-man federal state of Lower Saxony toget-her with its partners Otto Bock Healthca-re, global leader of innovative productsfor people with limited mobility, and theorthopaedic clinic of the Hannover Me-dical School.

From accident victims toOlympic champions

This year, the symposium will be openedby Lower Saxony’s minister of economicsJörg Bode under the motto »from acci-dent victims to Olympic champions«. Theevent will explore multi-disciplinary andinnovative therapies in the fields of trau-ma surgery and of orthopaedics. Jointly,the participants will, for example, learn

to know latest developments for artificiallimbs for double transtibial amputees ina comparison to able bodied athletes.

Issues regarding education, teaching, anmanagement of trauma care are to be con-nected; patient assurance and clinical path-ways will be topics of presentations as wellthe newest insights about incidents withmass casualties and post-traumatic conse-quences.

The topics covered during the sympo-sium will also be included in events whichwill continue during the most important he-alth care trade fair of the Arab world in theGerman Pavilion from 23 to 27 January.

Established over three decades ago, theArab Health Exhibition and Congress isthe largest international health-care eventin the Middle East and the second largestin the world. Held at the »Dubai WorldTrade Center«, it’s to present more than60 countries and planned to attract over65,000 medical professionals from acrossthe world.

ORTHOPAEDICS

CONTACT

NGlobalDr Anne Hopertphone +49 (0)511 89.7039.16e-mail [email protected]

The superchip


H E A LT H C A R E

It was a huge administrative exercise –since 1 November, all citizens of the Uni-ted Arab Emirates have been required toregister for a new personal identity card.The new card is supposed to make it ea-sier for them to deal with governmentagencies and make purchases, and storesfingerprints and an individual electronicsignature on a chip. But the governmentisn’t stopping there.

Negotiations are under way as to how thenew ID cards might be made to replace thelong-standing insurance cards that citi-zens also use, explained Zaid al-Siksek,Director of the Health Authority of AbuDhabi (HAAD). Health records could al-so be stored on the card, Siksek said du-ring the fifth Abu Dhabi Medical Con-gress at the end of October. The mainthing that prompted the step is the vast

amount of information that gets lost as pa-tients move between the national healthsystem and private clinics. According toEIA, the authority responsible for issuingthe identity cards, about a third of all me-dical files are either never passed on orreach their destination incomplete.

Meanwhile, the implementation of astatutory health insurance scheme in Du-bai is not going as smoothly as planned.Local media have reported that the ex-pensive package of features known as»Enaya«, intended exclusively for civilservants, is to be revised after careful exa-mination. To keep costs down, theHAAD is planning to introduce a semi-public insurance scheme based on theDaman Health Insurance model in AbuDhabi. metz

DATA

illustration:Lesprenger

Now Abu Dhabi health authorities want to store patients’ health records on their identity cards.Useful transparency or erosion of Emiratis’ privacy?

For more information please contact – www.nglobal.com

Niedersachsen, the logistics state, connects the world by sea,

air, road and rail through its central location, where the conti-

nent´s north-south and east-west transportation routes inter-

sect. It is the home of Volkswagen, Airbus, Salzgitter Stahl,

Meyer Werft Shipyard, Continental and TUI, to name a few.

Hannover is known for the world’s biggest trade fairs as CeBIT

and Hannover Messe.

• 8 million inhabitants

• Hannover, state capital,

516,000 inhabitans.

• centered airport in Hannover

Niedersachsen. German for Business

Niedersachsen’s economic strengths

Logistics

• Nine seaports, plus JadeWeser

Port – Germany’s only deep-

water port – from 2012

• Comprehensive network of

logistics hubs: an excellent

infrastructure for intermodal

transport

Energy

• A broad energy mix: natural

gas and crude oil, biomass,

wind power, offshore and

solar energy

• A leader in all sectors of

renewable energies: intensive

use and development of the

technologies of the future

Automotive

• Volkswagen Group is one of

the world’s biggest car manu-

facturers

• Some 700 businesses in supply

industry

• High degree of research in the

automotive sector

Food industry

• Niedersachsens food industry

chain: crops, livestock farming,

food safety, and food processing

• One in two chickens, one in two

potatoes, one in five litres of milk

produced in Germany come from

Niedersachsen

Life Sciences

• Niedersachsen is home of

around 250 life science compa-

nies

• More than 11,000 healthcare

professionals, over 200 high-

grade hospitals, clinics, rehab-

ilitation facilities

– Trade & InvestNiedersachsen Global, NGlobal, is the foreign trade and inward investment agency of the State of Niedersachsen. The organization advises foreign companies looking to expandtheir business activities in the German market. It provides information on foreign trade to Niedersachsen companies that seek to enter into foreign markets. For more informationvisit us online and get in touch with us at: www.nglobal.com

E ven the ancient Egyptians were be-auty fanatics. Papyri confirm eff-orts at plastic surgery in the Nile

Valley as early as 1,600 BC. In the 21stcentury, it is Beirut’s turn to become thefocal point of beauty surgery in the Midd-le East. There are more than 300 appea-rance surgeons in the city, and beauty cli-nics stacked sky-high in the tall buildingsin suburbs like Hamra and Verdun.

Improving a wrinkle here, flattening achin there … people in Lebanon are far lessinhibited than those in Europe about ad-mitting to resorting to surgery and even goshopping immediately after the operationsporting nose bandages. Spending severalthousand dollars on self-beautification is notconsidered embarrassing at all. Rather, it isa way of showing how rich one is.

One factor that has made people muchless resistant to the idea of interfering withnature for the sake of beauty is the adventof non-invasive methods. There is not a dropof blood to be seen, and the scalpel is usu-ally left in the drawer. Instead, patients re-ceive subcutaneous injections of a variety ofmedically active substances. Botox, the best

known of these, was first heard of in the be-auty industry in the early 1990s, but there isnow a whole string of similar products withbrand names like Estelan, Deflux and Re-stylane. Restylane was one of the first ‘fil-lers’, products based on hyaluronic acid,which has the almost magical property ofbeing able to store up to six litres of waterper gram. It’s a »secret« that Eline Nehme,Manager Sales and Marketing for Medica,which sells Restylane and many other fillersand special equipment, calls the »call for wa-ter«. There will be a product or item ofequipment to do whatever you want done:inject wrinkles, rejuvenate the skin, enhan-ce the lips or reshape facial contours.

Injections go beyond age or gender. The-re’s a product to suit everyone,« says Neh-me in a conference room on the 12th floorof the Mallah Centre in the Beirut suburb ofJal el Dib. Medica is a market leader, with of-fices in Dubai and Saudi Arabia and an an-nual turnover of USD 30 million. Beirut isa regional office. Fillers offer a number of ad-vantages, especially for busy people, enthu-ses Nehme. Not only is there no blood in-volved, but treatment lasts no longer than an

hour. »These days, you can go and have a tre-atment during your coffee break.« The linebetween cosmetics and beauty surgery isblurring all the time.

The growing Lebanese market is burstingwith beauty businesses. Silkor supplies lasertechnology. Fattal distributes implants ma-de by Mentor. DIMA Healthcare, UPO andothers supply Beirut’s beauty surgeons witha vast range of products and staff.

Among the expat pharmacists is Roland Toh-me, 37, who practices at several different cli-nics. Today he’s at the »Beirut Beauty Clinic«in the suburb of Zalka. Smog from traffic onthe Zalka Highway has faded the façade ofthe ten-storey building, but inside, every-thing revolves around beauty.

Black lacquered wood, a white tiled floorand modern art works in bronze adorn therooms on the fourth floor. The whole area


H E A LT H C A R E

»Injections go beyond age or gender«

PLASTIC SURGERY

Would you like a facelift with that?Innovations dreamt up by Beirut’s plastic surgeons – including ducking out during the lunch hour for a beauty treatment paid for by a loan from the bank – have made the world headlines and turned their city into one of the hottest markets for ‘appearance’ business

by Björn Zimpr ich


H E A LT H C A R E

is immaculately clean. Patients sitting in thewaiting room can be watching television onplasma screens or leaf through the adverti-sing brochures that showcase the latest trendsand techniques in appearance medicine.

Dr Tohme is unreservedly optimistic ab-out the future: »Everyone in Lebanon is tal-king about beauty operations. Everyone’sthinking about it, even the middle class andpeople at the bottom of the heap. They sa-ve their pennies for an operation. I can’t seeany end to the boom.«

For those who feel that saving money iswasting time, there are special offers. FirstNational Bank will lend up to USD 5,000 forappearance surgery. The idea came from thebank’s marketing manager, Maher Mezher.

»After the war with Israel in the sum-mer of 2006, we launched the ›plastic sur-gery loan‹. It was quite deliberate – afterall the war and destruction, we wanted toturn things around, set an example,« saysMezher. It has certainly been very suc-cessful PR-wise: »Calls to our loans de-partment shot up from 50 a day to 400. Wehave between 2,000 and 3,000 customersa year.« The bank charges 5.5 per cent in-

terest per annum, so it only just pays itsway, but Mezher admits that where it hasbeen worthwhile is in the profile it has gi-ven the bank, with media coverage all overthe world, including on CNN and the BBC.

One might expect to find the marketsaturated, considering that Lebanese havebeen able to borrow money for appearan-ce surgery for years now, but new clinicsare opening all the time and the existingones are expanding, thanks in part to »be-auty tourism«. Between 10 and 40 per centof the patients in Beirut’s clinics come fromabroad, drawn by the good prices. Whynot, when a top surgeon will do a nose jobfor just USD 2,000?

My research shows that treatments coststwo or three times more in other MiddleEastern countries, particularly in the Gulfstates. We have doctors here who studiedand trained in Europe and the USA. Andwhen they’re not working, it’s a great pla-ce to live, with beautiful Mediterraneanbeaches and holidays in the mountains.«

Some clinics offer all-inclusive packageslike »nose, bust and beach«. Some custo-mers even came from faraway Australia last

summer. »Most of my customers are Leb-anese who live in other countries and Arabsfrom the Gulf, but I did have two patientsfrom Germany just recently,« says SamiSaad from his clinic in Hamra, Beirut.

Saad is Chairman of LSPRAS, the »Leb-anese Society of Plastic, Reconstructiveand Aesthetic Surgery«. The organisationis passionate about safeguarding and pro-moting the reputation of Lebanon’s beau-ty industry internationally. From 25 to 27November, it held the second internatio-nal congress of beauty surgeons in Beirut,hosting experts from the USA, Canada,Belgium and Germany.

The congress was to feature live opera-tions as a form of professional develop-ment for local surgeons. Such commit-ment reveals Beirut’s determination notto let anything get in the way of its posi-tion as the »capital of the beauty industry«.And nobody doubts that the boom willcontinue.

A new nose without the wait

Sami Saad is chairman to an

interest group, promoting Lebanon’s

beauty business.

Specialist Roland Tohme is a

familiar face at seceral beauty

clinics in Beirut.

Eline Nehme, representing Medica,

sells everything the beauty industry

could want.

pictures:Björn^

Zim

prich

Moroccans buys Tide,Egyptians stick to PersilBrands aren’t meant to rule our lives, but life sometimes turns out like that anyway. The strange tale of washing powder brands in Morocco and Egypt

by Mohamed Amjahid

HOUSEHOLD GOODS

wives found the idea of »Made in Germa-ny«– repeated incessantly in the adverti-sements – so compelling that, according toHenkel, they are »100 per cent satisfied«.»We advertise very assertively on the the-me of German technology and it hits themark,« says Hend Khalil from Henkel’sMiddle East section. In the advertisement,a plumber wearing a shirt and tie tells a cu-stomer that Persil will be particularly ea-sy on her washing machine, whereuponthis Egyptian lady henceforth also »onlybuys Persil«. The special product for theblack abaya, the cloak that some Muslimwomen wear, is very popular in Egypt, andin Iran and the Gulf states.

While Persil is used mainly for machi-ne washing, Tide was designed with a dif-ferent technique in mind. The number ofwashing machines being sold in Moroc-co is increasing, but most customers –around 80 per cent – still wash by hand,using a board. So German television vie-wers see an updated version of a 1969 ad-vertisement, featuring a smiling, down-to-earth woman who says, over and overagain, »I only buy Tide!«

Newlyweds, a freshly scrubbedshirt collar, the tiniest hint of asmudge – it almost led to divor-

ce. Thank goodness for »Tide«, the was-hing powder that housewives know savesmarriages! The 1960s advertisement is stillplaying somewhere in the backs of theminds of Morocco’s housewives, still bu-sily washing, when they send their childrendown to the corner shop to buy a packetof Tide. The product with the orange andblue logo is especially popular with poorpeople, who also use it as dishwashing li-quid, an all-purpose cleaner in the kit-chen and bathroom, hand soap and, ifthey are really, really poor, as shampoo.

Tide has been around in Morocco sin-ce the 1950s, when it was found only inthe barracks of American soldiers. Parentcompany Procter & Gamble was quick tospot a gap in the market and erected itsfirst factory in Casablanca’s industrial zo-ne. It now produces approximately 250 mil-lion boxes of washing powder a year, sel-ling 700,000 a day. The best way to use itis in 40-gram portions, »because peoplevalue the price stability of the brand,« ex-

plains a loyal customer. In 10 years, the215-gram box has gone up by only theequivalent of five euro cents. For »ages« ithas cost five dirhams, or around 50 eurocents.

There is little point anyone else trying tocompete in this market, at least for Germancompany Henkel, which owns Persil anddoes not have a presence in Morocco. On-ly the British-Dutch Unilever has dared try

its luck with its Omo brand, and shares theMoroccan market with Procter & Gamble.For the poor, however, nothing has chan-ged. They still buy Tide.

At the other end of the Mediterranean,most Egyptian housewives swear by a dif-ferent brand. At least a quarter of them goalong with the slogan »Doing the washingmeans Persil«. It all started in the 1960s,when washing powder imported fromDüsseldorf quickly found its way fromLebanon to Egypt. And Egyptian house-



There’s only onelaundry product

Persil »Abaya« keeps the fabric

nice and black.

picture:HenkelEgypt



OFFICE SUPPLY

Ctrl+Cmd+GulfArab Business Machine was the exclusive agent for Apple products in the Middle East for many years, but the Emiratis’dearth of strategy did nothing for their reputation amongstMac fans. Now Apple is severing the cord

by Nils Metzger

Apple does not have a visible, acti-ve presence in the Middle East. Theofficial reseller, Arab Business Ma-

chine (ABM), hides inside the two storesopened since an exclusive deal was signedin Dubai. »Apple would be completely ir-relevant if there were not Mac fans heretoo,« complained user Mazen al-Angary inFebruary 2007 in his blog at MyMac.com.In those days, anyone who wanted an Ap-ple product had to have it mailed from an-other country or talk to an unlicensed de-aler, which meant getting a device withoutthe manufacturer’s warranty.

Essentially, what has happened in themeantime is that Apple products have be-come a status symbol amongst the urbanmiddle class in the Gulf. »We are havingdifficulty meeting the demand. There arelong waiting lists of people wanting aniMac,« reports Chafik al-Kinany, the ma-naging director of Saudi electronics chainitechia. To offset the hefty import dutiesand freight charges, he sweetens the bill byadding extras like tickets to motor sportevents. Sales are going so well that Kinanyhas set aside most of the space in his se-ven stores in Riyadh for Apple products.

In the US, Apple’s traditional base, wordfinally got through that there was a roa-ring trade in unlicensed Macs in the Midd-le East. Early in 2011, rumours were rifethat Apple intended to get rid of ABMand open branches of its own. Finally, inSeptember, the meaning of the job adver-

tisements that had appeared in the Emi-rates became clear. Apple was going to setup its first online store for the region. »TheMiddle East has huge potential,« said Ap-ple CEO Tim Cook enthusiastically, if so-mewhat vaguely, at a press conference.

The beginning of the end of the rela-tionship with ABM came back in 2007,

when the iPhone arrived on the scene andApple concluded exclusive contracts withtelephone companies in the region ratherthan with ABM’s parent company, MidisGroup. Further down the line, that meantthat ABM did not benefit from the exo-dus of Blackberry customers when the go-vernment of the United Arab Emirates de-clared Blackberry’s encoded data servicesillegal in 2010.

Neither ABM nor Apple is willing tospeak to the media about its plans forthe future. But Apple customers in theMiddle East are still not on an equal foo-ting compared to the rest of the world.The much-vaunted video telephony ap-plication »FaceTime« has not yet beenreleased in Saudi Arabia and the UAEbecause it contravenes the strict condi-tions for IP-based communication – ap-parently because it could be used for por-nographic purposes.

Could FaceTime be pornographic?

Do youprefer thetangible?Subscribe to the print editionof our renowned zenith-BusinessReportfor USD 55.00/AED 200.00

Or order the PDF for freeunder [email protected]

I n 2004, a television advertisement sho-wed Dutch footballer Pierre van Hoo-ijdonk, who was contracted to Istanbul

club Fenerbahce at the time, drinking a canof Cola Turka – and immediately growing amoustache. Previous ads for the same brandshowed American film star Chevy Chase de-veloping typically Turkish – and entirely po-sitive – characteristics after enjoying the softdrink. »Cola Turka, the cola that makes youTurkish,« goes the slogan.

The ads, which hit the spot at exactlythe right time with their humorous de-monstration of Turkish identity and self-confidence, gave Turkish foodstuffs com-pany Ülker a market share of 20 per centalmost immediately. One of the moversand shakers behind them was Turkish ad-vertising guru Ugurzan Ataoglu, then stillCreative Director with the Istanbul branchof the international agency Young & Ru-bicam. He and his team developed not on-

ly the campaign but also the name of thenew drink: »At first, Ülker rejected ›ColaTurka‹ as a brand name outright. We hadto fight long and hard to get them to ac-cept our idea, but we were proved right inthe end,« he remembers.

At the end of 2003, Ataoglu set up hisown agency, Alametifarika, with some ofhis most talented colleagues. The strate-gy they had used to good effect for ColaTurka became the trademark of the newcompany: modern, original and expensi-ve advertising that could hold its own an-ywhere in the world in terms of quality,with content oriented around typicallyTurkish values and themes.

»Regional spirit, global quality,« is howYasemin Sumer, a co-founder and depu-ty managing director of Alametifarika,describes the agency’s recipe for success.She is sitting in a light, airy room on theground floor of a tastefully renovated her-

itage building in the Istanbul suburb ofBesiktas, where the company has its he-adquarters. From the outside, there is litt-le to indicate that advertising for the big-gest markets in Turkey (as well as Ülker,the client list includes Turkish Airlines,Turkcell and Garantibank) is produced he-re: just an understated sign by the door-bell and an installation made of orangefluorescent tubes that form the words»Science, Art and Technology servingCommerce«. Inside, Sumer – in jeans, asimple white blouse and dramatic jewell-ery – shows sample advertisements on heriPad, while another member of the teamserves cappuccino. In the next room, hip-looking young creatives sitting on a sofaare enjoying the morning brainstormingsession.

Alametifarika quickly became one ofthe most successful agencies in Turkey andis now the strongest of the nation’s inde-

Turkish spirit,global standardsTurkey’s advertising industry is developing rapidly and becoming one of the most promising markets in the world.The country’s most successful agencies are those that stay in touch with regional values

by Yasemin Erg in



ADVERTISEMENTS

Bildquelle:A

lametifarika

pendent advertising companies. The Tur-kish market is still dominated by big mul-tinational agencies like Saatchi & Saatchi,TBWA and BBDO, which all have Turkishstaff in branch offices in Istanbul, wor-king for Turkish clients. Except for Ala-metifarika, most Turkish-owned agenciesare minnows competing with the inter-national giants. It is not possible to mea-sure their success by comparing turnover,because Turkish agencies do not releasethat information. Instead, the agencies’profiles in the media, measured in termsof television minutes, advertising spaceand magazine pages devoted to their re-spective campaigns, give a good idea ofwhich creative team is leading the race inany given year.

Alametifarika has been number one ortwo amongst the »top ten« successful agen-cies in Turkey for years, the only Turkish-owned agency to even make it into the list.

Taking Turkey’s cultural and regional pe-culiarities into account obviously works.Sumer: »We were the first to come up withthe idea and we’ve stuck wholeheartedlywith this strategy for many years now. Yeswe’re creative, yes we look to the West, andwe orient ourselves to European standardsand always have the markets and strategiesthere in mind. But we make sure we neverbecome detached from the region we livein.« Most Alametifarika campaigns featu-re Turkish faces and Turkish music or sto-ries. For a series of television spots for mo-bile telephony company Turkcell, the teamtravelled to all corners of Turkey and pres-ented the country and its people in all theirregional and cultural diversity. »In the be-ginning, most people just smiled at us,«says Sumer, »but now many agencies havetaken the idea on board.«

Is it really possible, though, to plumbthe depths of the Turkish soul, to really

understand it, in a modern, cosmopolitancity like Istanbul, where all the advertisingagencies are based? Yes, says Burcin Tor-top, 35, one of Alametifarika’s creative di-rectors. »We’re in the thick of things he-re. Normal Turkish life is all around us he-re in Besiktas. We don’t have to live outin the sticks to understand our country.You can do that just as well here if you getout of the fancy suburbs. It’s not difficultif you also watch Turkish television se-ries and entertainment shows from time


Modern campaign with local flavour: Alametifarika puts its recipe for success to work for its star clients.


The younger generation has agreat appetite forbrand-name products

>>

Founded in 1994,

Turkcell – Turkey’s

largest mobile telepho-

ny provider, with 34

million customers and

an annual revenue of

almost USD 6 billion,

was a great catch for

Alametifarika.



to time rather than just art house cinemaor ‘Mad Men’ (an American series about afictional advertising agency in the 1960s).«

Tortop, who enjoys snowboarding,funk music and independent cinema andturns up to our interview wearing a car-digan and gumboots, also knows how ad-vertising is made in the West. A few yearsago, she worked for Hamburg agencySpringer & Jacoby when Turkcell com-missioned a campaign aimed at Turks li-ving in Germany. The several months shespent at the agency’s head office in Ham-burg did not reveal any great behind-the-scenes differences: »Of course, there arespecific cultural things to be observedwhen it comes to humour or certain co-des. On the whole, though, advertisingand creativity are universal. We don’t workvery differently from our German colle-agues.« There were a few small differen-ces when it came to the production faci-lities, which are simply further ahead inthe West. In Turkey, for example, it hasonly recently become possible to train ca-mera operators specifically for adverti-sing. »Our spots were always filmed bytop directors, but it makes a differencewhether someone is used to telling a sto-ry in 90 minutes or has learned how to tellit in 40 seconds. That’s why so many Tur-kish advertising spots are pretty lame

strong regional brands that have the po-tential to do well on the international mar-kets. Jeans brand Mavi and electronicsgroup Beko are already blazing the trail.There is much to attract companies to in-vest in advertising for the Turkish market.

Though still very small by internatio-nal standards, Turkey’s advertising sectoris the fastest-growing market in Europe.In the first half of 2011, TRY 2.27 billion(Turkish lira, equivalent to EUR 922.7 mil-lion) was spent on advertising, a 24 percent increase on 2010. The year beforethat, the growth rate was a whopping 36per cent. By comparison, Germany’s ad-vertising sector grew 2.3 and 2.7 per centin the last two years.

When the board of BBDO, an interna-tional advertising and marketing agencybased in New York and with branches in79 countries, held its annual general mee-ting in Istanbul last May, the choice of de-stination was no accident. Interviewed byTurkish newspapers, CEO Andrew Ro-bertson was enthusiastic about the state ofadvertising in the host nation. Turkey hadthe potential to become the »leading star«in advertising worldwide, he said. Comingfrom the head of the third-largest com-munication network in the world, thewording of the prophecy sounded almostOriental.

compared to those in other countries. Butthere’s a lot happening, and we’re deve-loping really fast.«

In Turkey, unlike in other countries inthe region, advertising did not have to in-vent itself from the ground up. There wasalready a long tradition of advertising, soa well-established, fully functional indu-stry has been in a good position to relateto a young, steadily growing populationhungry for brand-name products and a

higher standard of living. While the glo-bal financial crisis has also affected Tur-kish markets, purchasing power has stay-ed stable around the Bosporus and the ef-fects have not been as severe as in otherparts of Europe. The huge growth poten-tial in the Turkish advertising industry isdue in part to the fact that comparative-ly few global brands have a presence inTurkey at this stage. There is still plenty forthe consumption-happy Turkish shoppersto discover and enjoy in retail-land, soconditions are perfect for businesses andadvertisers. As well, there are numerous

In the beginning, most people just

smiled at us,« says Yasemin Sumer,

Alametifarika’s deputy managing

director.

Her boss, agency founder Ugurzan

Ataoglu, is happy: »We were

proved right in the end.«

BBDO’s head manpraises Turkey’s advertising industry


C O N S U M P T I O Npictures:private

Though the Arab spring swept acrossthe Islamic world surprisingly litt-le has changed in European auc-

tion rooms and galleries selling Islamic art.Elisabeth Parker, Head of Rugs and Carpetsat Christie’s in New York, is content with thesale’s results: »It continues to remain trueto itself – all the top lots are sold above theestimate.« What is true for Middle Easternpolitics is not necessarily true for Islamicart – the market is as predictable as ever.

Carpets remain popular among the Eu-ropean collectors. Persian, Turkish, Mo-roccan carpets were traded here for cen-turies. »Like an old Russian icon, a Persi-

an carpet was am epitome of the magic,enigmatic Orient’«, says Edward Gibbs,head of the Islamic department at Sothe-by’s. Though his London auction housebegan selling Islamic art relatively recent-ly, the less than five million pounds of the2001 sale turnover look pale compared tothe record 64 million pounds of the eve-ning sale this year. Together with textilesthe auction house sells Islamic metal wa-re, ceramics, manuscripts and contempo-rary art from the region.

Paradoxically, Gibbs attributes this suc-cess to what he calls a »background noise«:»Since 9/11 the whole world follows the

development of the situation in the Midd-le East. You may not be particularly inter-ested in what is happening there, but youcan’t ignore it.« The Arab Spring hasbrought this interest to a new height. Dif-ferences between Christians and Muslims,tribal politics, Islamic doctrines, Shia andSunnis are explored by world’s leading jour-nalists. Colourful documentaries talk aboutculture, history, world of adventure. »Peo-ple are attracted to everything different.Though 9/11 is one of the lowest points ofour relationships with the Muslim world itis also a beginning of the surge of interestin Islamic art«, concludes Gibbs.

Treading softlyUsually barely noticed, trade with Islamic carpets has established a niche with European and American collectors – against all challenges of this highly specialized business. Of all things political conflict in the Middle Eastern region has even supported this trend

by Alexander von Hahn



CARPETS

The business is thriving on

mythical powers: the Oriental

carpet – be it from North

Africa or Central Asia – swept

into European palaces

and even Russian folklore.

Trade of antiquities is connected to politicsin more than one way, the confrontationbetween the US and Iran is an example.»We would like to be associated with cul-ture and history, not nuclear weapons, orIslamic fundamentalism. Yet, when talkingabout Iran most people think of politics,not art«, complains a London carpet dea-ler, who lost many of his American clientsbecause of the embargo on all things Per-sian. First imposed by the US governmentsoon after the 1979 Islamic revolution, theembargo was recently considerably broa-dened. »Indeed, the market’s reaction wasnegative«, says Mark Dance, carpet expertat Bonham’s auction house in London.»Persian carpets are a large segment of thetrade, while American collectors are amongthe most affluent when it comes to rarepieces of exceptional quality and prove-nance.« Traditionally considered to be onpar with Flemish tapestries or Sèvres por-celain when it comes to luxury and splen-dour, Iranian carpets, and caviar, becameoff-limits for most of the overseas clients.

The void was soon filled by the Turkishand Caucasian rugs, their growth in valuesurprising even the most seasoned pro-fessionals. After the collapse of the USSR,Caucasian rugs flooded the market, theprices dived. Yet, recent auction recordsput those Caucasian textiles back to themarket’s »front row«. In 2008, a Chelab-erd Kazak, which belonged to the estate ofthe glamorous East Coast heiress and so-cialite Helen Hope Montgomery, was soldby Freeman Auctioneers for the recordUSD 341,000.

»Rugs from the Caucasus – Azerbaijanand Dagestan – are quite popular with de-alers, collectors, and interior decorators«,says Elisabeth Parker. »Bright colours,bold, geometric designs, exuberance ofcomposition make these pieces particu-larly attractive for almost every categoryof buyers and every interior, whether mo-dern or traditional.«

Anatolian rugs and Ottoman carpetsare particularly sought after by a rising

class of Turkish art collectors. »As Turkeyprospers, as it gains weight in internatio-nal affairs, more and more people are pre-pared to pay top price for somethingwhich only a decade ago was consideredto be a »niche product«. It might be spe-culative – the demand is on the rise. Butit may also be a reflection of the long-term commitment to the Ottoman art«,says Mark Dance of Bonham’s in London.

Turkic rugs exhibit remarkable consi-stency of design and colour throughoutcenturies and across the vast region, stret-ching from Qashgai of Iran in the East toSarajevo in Bosnia in the West. Nomadsand travellers, Turks used carpets for allsorts of purposes: furnishings, travel ac-cessories, even architecture. Elaborate geo-metric compositions, ornamental bands,and elements of various rug design wereto signify tribal and ethnic identity of theowner, reflect his social status. It was alsoto warn off the evil spirits and to protectthe livelihood of the family. »Tribal art isalways about power, strength, vitality. Anoriginal tribal rug always arouses curiosi-ty, provokes discussion. Ultimately, it

brings people closer to the understandingof true nature of creativity and imagina-tion«, says Parker.

»If there is anything in common bet-ween Freud and Warhol, it is their interestin Islamic rugs«, concludes Jason Naz-miyal, founder of the Nazmiyal Collec-tion of New York. He is a proud owner ofa late 19th century Zeigler Sultanabadfrom Sigmund Freud’s London residen-ce. The rich and powerful use to collectrugs for centuries. »It is hard to imaginea European court portrait without an Is-lamic carpet or drapery. With central he-ating in limited supply, most of the pala-ce owners went for something soft and



colourful, covering floors by made-to-or-der Persian carpets«, comments Nazmiy-al. Carpets were kept for centuries, passingfrom one generation to the next.

Not any more: »People rarely pay muchfor what they regard as nothing more thanan interesting decorative element«, conti-nues Nazmiyal. »Most of my Americanclients look for smooth palette and co-lour structure, which is supposed to fitinto the interior, not to dominate it. Ger-mans, on the contrary, prefer tribal rugswith bright colours and strong, geome-trical shapes. So do Italians, who collectrugs passionately and often without muchregard to the overall condition. For themthe most important criteria is the rug’saesthetic quality.« Also, »bigger« does notalways means »better«: »Monumental car-pets are difficult to sell. Especially afterthe financial crisis«, finds Nazmiyal.»Small«, however, may also be a problem– modestly-sized prayer rugs fall out ofcontext in a European apartment – »car-pets business is a challenging field.«

»What we have now is the ›change ofguards‹«, says Detlef Maltzahn, head ofRippon-Boswel & Co. in Wiesbaden, Ger-many, by their own accords the only spe-cialist auction house for antique rugsworldwide. Dusting rugs is considered old-fashioned, even archaic: »The new genera-tion prefers the convenience of a floor he-ating, functionalism prevails over tradi-tion.« Almost every German auction househas a rug sale with prices ranging from afew dozens to a few hundred Euros. Andeven at these levels much remains unsold.

Yet, the market for Islamic carpets ison the rise. In a world often devoid of in-timacy and personal touch Islamic car-pets find their devoted followers. »Carpetcollecting is not a past time. It is not evena hobby. It is like crossing a desert by tra-velling from one oasis to the next. It is li-ke being married, growing old together.The more you know, the more you wantto know. An investment of a lifetime«, saysMaltzahn with a smile.

Functionalism versus tradition

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Beirut was known as the Paris of the East,home to jet-setters, famous for its glitzand glamour, stylish architecture, highprices and transitory relationships. The1990s brought the »Hong Kong look«, andglass towers and big business came totown. Solidere, the construction companyowned by former President Rafic Hariri,who was murdered in 2005, rebuilt theinner city, which had been laid waste by15 years of civil war, virtually overnight.

Beirut was – and still is – a city of ex-tremes. There are fancy boutiques along-

side buildings with 20-year-old bullet ho-les, Ferraris belonging to tourists from theGulf States parked next to 40-year-oldMercedes limousines occupied by decre-pit taxi drivers who aren’t sure how they-’re going to make ends meet. A litre of pe-trol now costs almost a euro and tips areall the more important these days. Thoseinterested in property markets will wantto head for the seaside suburb of Raouché.The trip by taxi will cost between USD 7and 10. You’ll know when you’ve arrivedwhen you see the famous landmark Pige-

Rooftop nightclubs, beautiful beaches, ski resorts only one-and-a-half hours away – cosmopolitan Beirut offers business travellers than most other Arab League capital cities

by Björn Zimpr ich


M Y . . . B E I R U T

Enjoy doing business with Phoenicians

ons’ Rock. Enjoy the view while you eat at»Bay Rock« or »Petit Café«, where the Leb-anese mezze are excellent and a meal of anentrée and meat main course won’t setyou back more than USD 20.

The »Mövenpick Hotel«, situated clo-se to Pigeons’ Rock, is a nice place to stay,with indoor and outdoor swimming poolsand its own shopping centre. It advertisesa »Business and bundle of benefits« pak-kage featuring high-speed Internet access,ocean view rooms, a breakfast buffet andfree use of conference rooms and the bu-siness lounge, as well as late checkout (6p.m.), the last a particularly useful featu-re since most flights depart Beirut in theevening. The »high-speed Internet« claimis not entirely believable, however, as da-

ta moves at snail’s pace in Lebanon. Thepackage costs USD 376, excluding taxesand a service supplement.

If you prefer to stay in the centre of thecity, you’ll find an elegant home at the»Phoenicia«, opposite the »Saint Geor-ges« yacht club, from USD 256 a night,with free use of the business centre forbusiness guests. The streets and monu-ments around the venerable hotel tell thedark side of Lebanese history. The near-by »Holiday Inn«, for example, is a me-morial to the 15-year civil war. Central-ly located, with views to western and ea-stern Beirut, it was a coveted base for themilitias. Yasser Arafat was based here un-til the Israeli army drove him out of Bei-rut in 1982.


M Y . . . B E I R U T

Sunset is a lovely time for a leisurely stroll along Beirut’s corniche.

picture:Bertilvidet

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>>

An impressiveglow ofexclusivity

Things are much quieter now, but not to-tally stable. Former President Rafic Hari-ri and his convoy fell prey to a bomb at-tack barely 50 metres from the Phoeniciain 2005. The assassination triggered the»Cedar Revolution«, which led to the Sy-rian occupying troops being expelled.

Ready for a nightcap after a hard day’swork? Beirut’s pub scene is livelier thanyou might think, and the hotel bar is byno means your only choice. 2008 Club ofthe Year »Skybar« is legendary. Located atBIEL, the »Beirut International Exhibi-tion and Leisure Centre«, it exudes an im-pressive glow of exclusivity, and you’ll ha-ve to book well in advance to get a table.A good way to impress the people you aredoing business with is to book before thetrip, then turn up – apparently on the spurof the moment – at the Skybar reception,tell them your name and be shown to yourtable. A nice evening out can cost severalhundred dollars and you’ll often hear pe-ople in Beirut drop into the conversationthat they »know someone who reserves atable at Skybar every week.«

Another rooftop option is the less ce-lebrated »White«. Perched atop the bu-ilding housing the publisher of the new-spaper al-Nahar, in Martyrs’ Square, itboasts a fabulous view of the Mediter-ranean and the Lebanon Mountains du-ring the day.

Heading out of the centre on the mo-torway toward the east, you come to »BeOver 18« (BO 18). It’s difficult to see un-less you know what to look for, but any ta-xi driver should be able to take you there

Restaurants, bars,clubs, and hotels in Beirut

Al-Balad, Rue Ahdab, Downtown,phone: +961.1 985 375

Al-Falamanki, Rue Damas, Sodeco,phone: +961.1 323 456

Bay Rock Café, Avenue Général de Gaulle, Raouche,phone : +961.1 796 700

Skybar, BIEL Pavillon, Downtown,phone: +961.3 939 191

hotels:

InterContinental Phoenicia,Rue Minet El Hosn, Ain El Mreisseh,phone: +961.1 369 100Home to film stars and heads of state.www.phoeniciabeirut.com

Mövenpick Hotel & Resort Beirut,Avenue Général de Gaulle, phone:+961.1 869 666Beirut’s only resort hotel with directaccess to the beach.m.moevenpick-hotels.com/beirut


M Y . . . B E I R U T

Saving the spirit of bygone times

through years of civil war:

Beirut’s luxury hotel »Phoenicia«.

picture:InterContinentalH

otelGroup

Greenbacks welcome

In the banking capital of the Levant thereare plenty of ATMs that accept internatio-nal eftpos, Maestro or credit cards, but it’salways worthwhile bringing a fistful of well-worn US dollar notes. The dollar is a han-dy, widely accepted method of paying forthings in shops, taxis or cafes.

Conversion is not difficult, as a dollar isworth about LBP 1,510. You don’t even ha-ve to check the newspaper each day to seewhat the exchange rate is doing, becausethe Lebanese pound is tied to the US dol-lar. While the ups and downs of the US cur-rency have had the Lebanese economy ona rollercoaster lately, it makes life easier forvisitors to Lebanon.

for USD 6 to 10. Passing the critical eye ofthe bouncer, you descend a long stairca-se below ground level. Later in the eve-ning, hydraulic pumps open the roof, re-vealing a starry sky to shouts and cheersfrom over-18 revellers.

Quite often, to save money, it’s a goodidea to spend a weekend between out-bound and inbound flights, but a Satur-day night in Beirut doesn’t mean you ha-ve to miss out on the German footballleague. Rue Monot is lined with British-style pubs, Premier League on every te-levision screen. The barkeeper the »Gree-dy Goose« is happy to switch channelsto the German League if you ask. Therewill be pictures, but not always sound –but then few viewers would be interestedin the Arabic commentary on the DubaiSport channel anyway.

The beach is the place to be from Mayto October. On Sunday afternoons, peo-ple mosey along to the beach clubs on theLebanese Mediterranean coast north ofthe city. From here to Byblos, the pictu-resque Nest, there are no public beaches.

Entry to a beach club costs USD6 to 22.Depending on the location, there may bemore on offer than just sand and sea. Bo-nita Bay, south of Batroun, has live bands,and the exclusive »Eddé Sands« also hasswimming pools. Or opt for one of thebeaches south of the city and travelthrough the banana plantations of Da-mour Bay, perhaps to »Oceana Beach Res-ort« and avoid the chaotic traffic betweenBeirut and Jounieh.

The winter months bring pleasures ofquite another kind. Qornet es-Saouda(3,083 metres) and Mount Sannine(2,628 metres) rise steeply from the co-astline, and the Faraya ski field is only90 minutes’ drive away. The ski lifts,powder snow and pistes may not quite

match those of St. Moritz, but neitherdo the prices. And your Facebook friendswill be amazed when they see the firstaprès-ski photos from your business tripto Beirut!


M Y . . . B E I R U T

year and tickets can cost up to four timesas much in summer, when many expatLebanese visit home. Budget airline AirArabia flies between Beirut and SharjahAirport.

A taxi trip from Rafic Hariri Airportto the CBD costs about USD 30. Busi-ness travellers with a business visa havea shorter wait in the arrivals hall. Othervisitors are usually given a free two-weekvisitor visa. It’s best if there are no Israe-li stamps in your passport. For longerstays, you will have to apply to the statesecurity service for a long-term visa – aprocess that is sure to test your nerves.

Airport Code:

BEY»Rafiq Hariri Airport«, named after themurdered President, is the gateway to Leb-anon. Since 2010, German airline Ger-mania has offered twice-weekly flightsfrom Berlin, the only direct connectionbetween the two capital cities. Lufthansaflies direct from Frankfurt to Beirut.

State-owned Middle East Airlines(MEA) will become a full member of the»Skyteam« programme in 2012, and fliesfrom Düsseldorf and Frankfurt up to fi-ve times a week, so frequent flyers withAir France, KLM, Alitalia, Delta and Aero-flot now have another way of earning airmiles.

MEA flies to the Gulf states several ti-mes a week, Emirates, Etihad and QatarAirways even more frequently. Prices va-ry considerably according to the time of

Everything you need to know:

the new Beirut app reveals what’s up,

what’s ‘in’ and where to go.

Beirut newbies with a Blackberry no lon-ger need to lug a guidebook around. Anapp for the ubiquitous business mobiledevices, linking to the online portal Bei-rut.com, was launched at the end of Sep-tember 2011. Easy-to-find tips and high-lights can be accessed with just a click.The app has lists of hotels, restaurants andlocal authorities, and a directory of busi-nesses in greater Beirut by type, as well asupcoming cultural and festive events. Thepackage is free to Blackberry users, who

Beirut by Blackberry

can put the money saved to good use inBeirut’s nightclubs.

Last year, Blackberry users were threa-tened with the loss of data services provi-ded by the Canadian manufacturer, RIM,when the governments of several Arabcountries, including Lebanon, threatenedto block them. The company was refusingto provide national authorities with the re-levant encryption codes. The ‘Blackberryaffair’ now seems to have been resolved.www.beirut.com/Blackberry

illustration:zenith

picture:Airplane-P

ictures.net/

Bulent

Kavakkoru

AGENDA

3rd AHK-MENA Economic Forum Democratisation – Opportunities – Futures Markets12 December, IHK (Chamber of Commerce) Frankfurt am MainThe lack of democratic participation bythe people of North Africa has never heldGerman companies back from involve-ment in the region. This conference willtake a closer look at how recent eventshave opened up new opportunities.www.frankfurt-main.ihk.de

Medical Specialists: Strengthening the Health Education Cooperation between Germany and the Near andMiddle East12 January, BerlinThe Ghorfa (Arab-German Chamber ofCommerce and Industry) health forumis still the most significant Arab-Ger-man conference for the medical profes-sion. What the »Near and Middle EastAssociation« (NUMOV) has to offer al-ternatively, we can’t say: organisers didnot provide us with any information. www.numov.org

Arab Health 201223 to 26 January, DIDEC Dubai, United Arab EmiratesHigher, faster, farther. Surely it hardlyneeds more advertising? Without adoubt, Arab Health is the key tradefair for medicine and health technolo-gy in the MENA region. »Can you af-ford not to come?« ask the organisersconfidently, while fascinated obser-vers keep an eye on ever-increasingmarket volumes. They’re right – youcan’t afford not to.www.arabhealthonline.de

IN OUR UPCOMING EDITION

buildingconstructionsUp isn’t the only way

Bauer stems tideA few days after construction company Bauer AG fromSchrobenhausen, Germany, had warned its shareholdersnot to expect a profit this year, it scored a bullseye. InNovember, it concluded an MOU with the Iraqi Mini-stry of Water Resources for renovations to the country’slargest reservoir in Mosul, northern Iraq, over the nextsix years. The total project worth is USD 2.6 billion. The-re were a few details to be finalised, the company said,but it was fairly sure of winning the contract. The finaldocuments should be signed in the coming months.

Emirates fires FIFAIn October, Emirates Airlines unexpectedly announ-ced that it would probably not be renewing its ad-vertising agreement with football’s international go-verning body after the 2014 world cup. As the mainsponsor, Emirates signed an eight-year contract worthUSD 195 million in 2006. FIFA said it was »puzz-led«, because the relationship had always been »verypositive«. Emirates’ marketing boss Boutros Boutroscriticised FIFA’s public image, hinting at the recentcorruption scandal, saying that image was »morethan just an internal problem« for FIFA. »They we-re the only client where people asked us ›Why areyou supporting them?‹«

Indian faces the musicAn Indian businessman from Dubai has paid aUSD 9.6 million fine for manipulating share pri-ces. The British Financial Services Authority finedRameshkumar Goenka, one of the richest busi-nesspeople in the Gulf region, for abusing insiderknowledge about Reliance Industries. It was the lar-gest fine ever imposed on an individual by the FSA,but mere pocket money compared to the USD 92.8million fine that the US Securities and ExchangeCommission imposed on disgraced hedge fundmanager Raj Rajaratnam.

EXPOMED Istanbul11 to 13 April, Istanbul, TurkeyThere’s almost nothing left of the »sick man of Europe«. The Turkisheconomy has left its feeble EU cou-sins behind. Not even Brazil, Russia,India or China can keep up with it.However, the health sector has notexactly been a driving force in the pro-cess, and this trip organised by theGerman Export Promotion Agency isintended to unleash the real moversand shakers in the sector.www.gepa2.de

Energy & Water Conservation Expo18 to 20 June, Manama, BahrainBahrain’s Minister of Energy wants tomake the point that there is more tohim than meets the eye, so he is ho-sting conferences on environmental to-pics. His record so far is not particular-ly impressive: the best thing Bahraindid this year to save energy was to can-cel the Formula 1 Grand Prix.www.beca.bh

Turkish International Oil & Gas Conference and Showcase21 to 22 March, Ankara, TurkeyThe big get-together for the Turkish oiland gas sector, with a focus on logi-stics and energy transport. As a transitcountry, Turkey occupies a strategicallyimportant position, a trump card thatstate-owned Botas Petroleum PipelineCorporation and others bring out innegotiations month after month. www.turoge.com


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and expertise, runs advanced trainingcourses and organises and coordinates acu-te humanitarian and medical aid.

It will also become the first port of callfor companies wanting to enter the Li-byan market – a place where businessesand institutions can access legal adviceand assistance with official formalities.

EurabiaPages of the German-Arab Association (DAG)

Dr Bassam Helou, born in Syria in 1946, isa member of the advisory board of theDAG. In 1991 he founded TransumedGmbH, a medical technology companythat builds turnkey hospitals. His supportwas instrumental in getting the DAG’spartner organisation, the German-LibyanForum, established earlier this year. Hehas already been involved in helpingwounded Libyans in Germany.

Professor Christoph Rangger, born inAustria in 1961, is a specialist in ortho-paedics and casualty surgery at Kranken-haus Nordwest in Frankfurt. A long-stan-ding member of the DAG, he works withDr Helou to provide preliminary medicalcare for Libyan war wounded.

Ali Memari Fard, born in Iran in 1959, is amember of the DAG board. He has more expe-rience than most of the ups and downs of busi-ness in the Middle East. Having developed a re-volutionary cement grinder that uses half theenergy of conventional grinders, he is pushingahead with the project despite bureaucraticbarriers. Mistakes are the only real way to le-arn, which is what makes him such an impor-tant adviser to and member of the DAG.

Dear DAG members and rea-ders, the German-Arab Asso-ciation (Deutsch-Arabische Ge-

sellschaft, DAG) outclasses other groupsand non-governmental organisations interms of synergy with its interesting con-tacts and member organisations and longtrack record of bringing together peoplewith a strong affinity for the Middle East.Everyone involved is committed to pro-moting democracy in Arab countries in aspirit of teamwork and cooperation. Thelatest DAG initiative is the German-Liby-an Forum (Deutsch-Libysches Forum,DLF), which aims to motivate partnersand stimulate supportive relationshipsthat will help Libya rebuild and develop.

The DLF office, which was establishedby a DAG delegation to Tripoli in Octoberled by Professor Scholl-Latour, and itsGerman »mover and shaker«, Dr BassamHelou, have already laid the foundationsof the humanitarian work. The office iscurrently working with a German part-ner to set up a prosthetics workshop inLibya to assist people injured in the war.Help is urgently required, because neit-her Libya itself, nor Tunisia, which hasalready done a lot to help, can handle theconsequences of war unaided.

As a forum where Libyan and Germaninstitutions and businesses can interact,the DLF facilitates networking amongstpartners, promotes the exchange of experts

FACES OF THE DAG

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Deutsch-Arabische Gesellschaft

Eurabia Pages of the German-Arab Society

that he would personally see to impro-ving the allocation of visas to businesspeople and students from Mediterraneancountries: »It is unacceptable that it is sodifficult for businesspeople and studentsto visit an export-oriented country likeGermany.« He also promoted German in-vestment in Libya: »I am aware that the-re is stiff competition in Libya, but thephilosophy undergirding German foreignpolicy is to establish a long-term rela-tionship between equals.« Despite the pro-mise of improvements, the red tapearound the visa application process hasnot yet been untangled.

Europe must not impose conditions onthe Arabs’ road to democracy. It needs toopen up a bit and look further afield. Tur-key has become a role model for manyArab countries, including in the politicalarena. Apart from a few splinter groups,Islamic political parties have changed di-rection and taken on board the desire ofthe people for democracy. They are not inthe majority, but for most people, theyare the only trusted basis from which todeal with the legacy of corruption fromregimes that were protected and proppedup by the West. Our role should be tosupport them, rather than instantly pu-nishing them by labelling them as poten-tial hotbeds of terrorism and making it al-most impossible for them to get visas.One of Germany’s biggest political partiesalso has a religious background and va-lues. We should emphasise what we havein common rather than the differencesthat come between us.

D i s p a t c h

EUROPEAN ROAD MAP FOR NORTH AFRICAArabic revolutionaries have seen off their former dictators in North Africa with breathtaking speed.With NATO’s help, Libyan insurgents finally took the capital, Tripoli. The revolutions in North Africa and unrest in other parts of the Arab world have profoundly changed the way the West sees these countries.They have begun the journey, but will they get to »destination democracy«?

BY HARALD MORITZ BOCK

Who would have thought it possible, on-ly a year ago, that the despots and nepo-tists of North Africa would become ans-werable to their citizens, before an Islamicjudge? The Tunisians were the first to seetheir money-hungry president descend,after years of being cosseted by Europe, in-to a state of such fear and dread that heabandoned everything and fled. Next itwas the turn of his neighbour, eccentricdictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was cor-nered and killed in his birthplace, Sirte.

But will the revolution, which has beendriven mainly by young people, reallybring about the rule of law and new civilsociety institutions, with justice for all?Each of the three North African countriesis developing in its own way. The resultsof the elections in Tunisia were a surpri-se only to the ill informed. The hue andcry raised in Western media about theconsolidation of Islam in Tunisia is a pro-duct of ignorance, xenophobia, exagge-ration and Eurocentric arrogance.

Radical Islamists and opponents of theWestern defence pact seized upon NA-TO’s »targeted killings«, which were farfrom a textbook example of compliancewith international law. We must now ju-stify and explain our actions and imme-diately come up with new measures thatare acceptable to all. We Europeans haveto live up to our role as the guarantors ofdemocratic change in the region. Speedyaid is needed if the fateful cycle of reven-ge and retaliation is to be broken. A Eu-ropean version of the Marshall plan is re-quired. The people of North Africa want

to reap the benefits of their revolution,not live in tent settlements amongst therubble. Having been through similar ex-periences in 1945 and 1989, we Germansare uniquely fitted for the task.

It is time for the big political founda-tions that have representation in the Arabworld to step up to the plate. They havetheir finger on the pulse of the mainlyyouthful population. Their perceptionsand comments on how things are deve-loping deserve more weight and support.

But Germany’s demonstration that aidfor redevelopment is not just empty wordsmust go beyond just the target countries.The litmus test of whether we really wantto ensure similar environments on bothsides of the Mediterranean, and whetherwe are really serious about seeing the birthof functional democracies and commu-nities protected by the rule of law, is whet-her we open our borders to the wounded,crippled victims of the war, for whomthere is no hope of treatment at home.The German government’s plans are astep in the right direction but do not gofar enough, given the pathetic state of thehealth sector in Libya.

The official Libyan spokesman on Eu-ropean affairs, Ali Zaidan, expressed hisindignation about the situation at an eventorganised by the German minister of fo-reign affairs, Guido Westerwelle, at theMelia Hotel in Berlin on 29 September.Zaidan abandoned diplomatic restraintand sharply criticised Germany’s restric-tive policies on issuing visas to war casu-alties. Westerwelle responded by saying

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A DAG delegation visited Libya for four days,

from 2 to 5 October, to assess the humanitarian

situation.

left to right: Professor Dr Christoph Rangger,

»Nordwest« clinic, Frankfurt am Main,

Rainer Eberle, German ambassador to Libya,

Dr Andreas Greither, CEO Agenolap, Susanne

Osthoff, Professor Dr Peter Scholl-Latour,

DAG President, Mohamed Elhoni, East Area

Security Supervisor libyana mobile phone,

Dr Bassam Helou, CEO Transumed,

Harald M. Bock, DAG Secretary General.

After the panel discussion on »Opportunities for Libya –

Forward into the future«, in the Tuscany Room at the

Würzburg Residence.

left to right: Harald M. Bock, HE Dr Aly Masednah

El-Kothany, Norbert Hufgard, Oliver Jörg, Dr Klaus U.

Hachmeier, Dr Konrad Schliephake, Professor

Dr Eckhard Pache.

HH The Emir Sheikh Sultan Bin Mohammad

Al-Qasimi, the ruler of Sharjah, launches the

German version of his book, »My Early Life«,

published by Georg Olms Verlag, at the

Frankfurt Book Fair.

right to left: UAE ambassador HE Mohammad

Ahmed Almahmoud; Dr Sultan Bin

Mohammad Al-Qasimi, Dr Amr Abdel-Hamid,

Harald M. Bock, DAG Secretary General.

EYE TO EYEGERMAN-ARAB ENCOUNTERS

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Eurabia Pages of the German-Arab Society

C o n t a c t s

Published byDeutsch-Arabische Gesellschaft e.V.Calvinstraße 23D-10557 BerlinGermany

Phone +49 (0)30 / 80941992 Fax +40 (0)30 / 8094 1996

[email protected] www.d-a-g.de

Editorial supervisionHarald Moritz Bock,DAG Secretay General

Honorary PresidentHis Royal Highness Prince Faisal Bin Abdulmajeed Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud

PresidentProfessor Dr Peter Scholl-Latour

Vice PresidentsDr Ernst J. Trapp,Trapp Construction International GmbH

Oliver Jörg, MdL,Chairman CSU Würzburg

Ulrich Kienzle,TV journalist

Organisation of trips to Arab countries for business groupsInformation about specialist conferences in Arab countries and GermanyAccess to DAG partner services in Arab countriesAdvertising on the DAG website and the DAG magazine, EURABIAOrganisation of Arab language courses and crash coursesCourses to prepare managers for work in Arab countriesDAG head office and Cologne branch office as contact pointsRegular discussions with business councils of Arab embassiesOrganisation of German-Arab specialist conferencesInformation service for visits to Germany by Arab government and business representativesReferrals to Arab business associations; facilitation of contacts via DAG board members Information about Arab business associates Preparation for staff intending to visit Arab countries Job vacancies and offers – DAG online service Information about calls for tenders by government departments in Arabcountries Assistance in the event of difficulty obtaining a visa

Travel & events

BUSINESS

February 2012 – GCC delegation toAbu-Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Qatar andOmanLead by: Birgit Kemphues, HonoraryConsul to the UAE for Science and Rese-arch. Please phone the DAG office to re-gister or ask for an itinerary.

March 2012 – delegation to AlgeriaLead by: DAG Vice-President UlrichKienzle

EDUCATION

Starting on 26 January 2012 – delegation to Najaf, Iraqvisits of the holy sites in Najaf, Kerbala,and Baghdad; lectures, discussions; visitsof the »Hauza« educational institution ofShiite scholars, and other institutions fordialogue and Islamic studies; exchange inworkshops and development of relationsbetween Western-Christian and Arabic-Shiite confessions; planning of future en-counters

NEW YEAR’S RECEPTION

10 January, at the French Cathedral,Am Gendarmenmarkt, BerlinRevolution celebrations with representa-tives from Tunisia, Egypt and Libya:among other items lecture by Rachid al-Ghannouchi, leader of the Tunisian Nah-da movement, legalized only since 1March 2011

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Ambassadors of the German Arab Association

You are interested in doing business with or in Germany? You don't have a contact yet and need a first reception centre? Our German Arab Association Ambassadors will help you and provide you with first information for your market entry to Germany.

KuwaitMr Khaled Al-HashaniPhone +965 24829964 73Email [email protected]

Libya / TripoliMr Adel MohamedPhone +218 914001712

Oman / MuscatMrs Heiderose F. MoossenPhone +968 92010 246Email [email protected]

Saudi Arabia / RiyadhMr Jochen HundtPhone +966 504 233 752Email [email protected]

Sudan / KhartoumDr. Mohamed AbushamaPhone +249 9122 566 46Email [email protected]

Tunisia / Souani-DjerbaMr Jochen KlinckmüllerPhone +216 98 664531Email [email protected]

Tunisia / ZarzisMrs Ulrike SchulzPhone +2162 528 1257Email [email protected]

United Arab Emirates / Abu DhabiMrs Birgit KemphuesPhone +971 55 5 10 69 50Email [email protected]

DAG services for member companies

Taking Root.

The success of international cooperation projects is highly dependent on comprehending the interests, the potential and the cultural context of the respective partner. In German-Arab development cooperation as well, con-tent in recent years has increasingly expanded beyond the specialist-tech-nical level to include overarching economic, social and political questions.

This is why the DAAD supports the establishment of bicultural Master’s programmes with Arab countries. In these programmes, German and Arab students acquire not only up-to-date technical know-how, but also regional knowledge and intercultural communication skills.

The following bicultural Master’s courses have thus far been funded within the scope of this programme:

“Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM)”, at Cologne University of Applied Sciences and the University of Jordan, Jordanwww.iwrm-master.info

“Renewable Energy and Energy E!ciency for the MENA Region (REMENA)”,at the University of Kassel and Cairo University, Egyptwww.uni-kassel.de/remena

“International Education Management (INEMA)”, at Ludwigsburg University of Education and Helwan University, Egyptwww.inema-master.com

anzeige_end_200x260_englisch.indd 1 11.08.2011 20:31:00

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BusinessReport Know where 1 8 4 0 Africa, Middle East and ... Business Report.pdf · minium Company« is now known as Du-bai Aluminium Corporation but is still sta-te owned.Previously,DUBAL