Smuggling in Cairo
Media
Part of Panorama
- Title
- Smuggling in Cairo
- Creator
- Canoy, Reuben R.
- Language
- English
- Source
- Panorama Volume XVII (No. 5) May 1966
- Year
- 1966
- Rights
-
- Fulltext
- ■ Will the problem be solved by this method? SMUGGLING IN CAIRO Smuggling is also a head ache to the Egyptian author ities. In an effort to stop the illegal flow of luxury goods into the country, the govern ment appropriated 600,000 Egyptian pounds (or about P5,200,000) to import the goods itself and drive black marketeers out of business. Along Cairo streets, smug gled items are openly sold at exorbitant prices. Exported toothpaste, for instance, sells at the Philippine equivalent of P5.00 for an economy-size tube. Toilet soap, drip-dry shirts and fancy cuff-links bear impossibly high price tags. Still, many Egyptians buy * therrt because no luxury item can be bought in as a result of a ban imposed by President Nasser. The government has dis covered that most of the goods came from Libya, Le banon and Goza, a customfree zone for Palestinian tra ders. Contraband from other countries are shipped in as personal effects of incoming travelers. * ♦ # Anti-smuggling efforts pro duced no results. When spe cial police squads chased the vendors off Cairo’s sidewalks, the latter carried their illicit business elsewhere. Check points at the airports, rail road stationsi, ports and the Goza highway halted contra band traffic in these places, all right. But the smugglers lost no time in setting up a new supply route by camel caravans, across the western desert from Libya, and through the Nubian desert from Sudan. Accepting defeat, the gov ernment threw up its hands in virtual despair and said, in effect, "If we can’t fight ’em let’s join ’em.” Advo cates of the new government policy believe that by import ing luxury goods itself, it can share in the profits in volved and force the smug glers out of business. * * * 40 PANORAMA Among the items that can be legally brought in are cameras, watches, women’s underwear, toys, neckties, ci garette-lighters, fishing and camping equipment, tape re corders, French perfumes. Be cause of the chronic lack of hard currency, Egypt hopes to be able to pay for these with Egyptian products — mainly textiles and handi crafts. Two delegations are leaving for Europe to nego tiate the deals. The government is confi dent that once his new move is implemented, the problem of smuggling will be licked. But in the meanwhile, Egypt’s smugglers are mak ing the most of what little time they have left. Trad ing on banned commodities continues at a brisk pace along Cairo’s Azhar and other side streets. Economic crisis or no, lu xury-loving Egyptians feel they have a right to enjoy only the best things that the piastre can buy. • « « Travel notes: Hongkong authorities handle the inter national airport with such efficiency that incoming vi sitors are cleared in a matter of minutes. The flow of pe destrian traffic is laid out so that you have to be aw ful stupid to get lost. The airport premises has a scrub bed look and makes every Filipino visitor ashamed of the Manila International Air port. . . . I had a talk with a friend ly ricksha man at the HK ferry landing, and found that he makes as much as a taxi driver. HK$20 for a day’s work. Although social re formers have depicted him as a poor, downtrodden crea ture, the ricksha man is com pletely happy and adjusted to his chosen vocation. I asked if he wasn’t bothered by the fact that he was do ing the work of a beast of burden. He turned to me with a wide, superior grin: “Nosir, nosir — everytime man rides, I think he is car go, like pig. ...” — By Reu ben R. Canoy in The Philip pine Herald, May 7, 1966. May 1966 41
- pages
- 40+