Progress on the Nile

Egypt's pharaohs performed astounding feats of engineering and resourcefulness in constructing the country's ancient monuments, but only ten years ago the modern Egyptian economy did not even produce pins. The situation has improved; Egypt's industrial production has increased 42.6% in the past three years. Last week the improvement was highlighted by the opening of the first industrial fair in Egypt's history. On an island in the Nile, smack in the middle of Cairo, 800 Egyptian firms spread their wares over a 120-acre site behind an entrance framed by a huge arabesque arch.

Egypt is rich in raw materials and relies heavily on them for export; one result is that prime places at the fair were given to models of mines and oil rigs, and to Egypt's fine cottons. But the surprise was the amount of consumer goods at the fair--55% of the total. They included many brand-new products, and ranged from TV sets and Pharmaceuticals to autos assembled in Egypt and turquoise jewelry from mines that were worked before Christ but only rediscovered last year. The Egyptians have developed a strong plastics industry to make everything from spoons to shoes; among the successes of the fair were 250 plastic sunglasses that may soon be flooding the Continent.

With such goods, the United Arab Republic has built an export business that this year will total $500 million--but that is not enough. Egypt is still forced to import so many necessities that it runs a perennial trade deficit. To help wipe it out, the Egyptians are selling hard to nations as distant as Norway and the Philippines, shipping tires to Czechoslovakia and China, and working successfully to overcome earlier complaints of inferior quality. The Egyptians look with great expectations to the emerging African market, which they hope will be a major outlet for Egyptian goods. It is no coincidence that the industrial fair coincides with a Cairo sum mit meeting this week of 34 African heads of state and their cabinet minis ters. Any one of them who manages to get out of Cairo without visiting that trade fair will have to be a slippery fellow indeed.

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