Store owners strike over new tariff in Port Said

While the Egyptian State is trumpeting financial incentives and investment opportunities along its new Suez Canal project, local store owners and traders in the northern canal city of Port Said have been protesting and marching against a new customs tariff imposed on them.

Many stores are reported to have closed, with some of them declaring open ended sit-ins until the new tariff is rescinded.

Hundreds took part in protest marches and blocked traffic in Port Said, with media reports that angry store owners sought to take their protest to the Customs Authority within the city’s port, but security forces prevented them.

Privately owned Al-Dostour newspaper described it as “an uprising of store owners,” while state-owned Al-Akhbar Al-Youm hailed it as a “revolution in Port Said.”

The private Sada al-Balad news portal reported that, on Tuesday, the local police department refused to authorize the store owners’ protest marches. Nevertheless the marches went ahead and police forces were deployed in large numbers, although they did not crackdown on protesters.

Following midday prayers, the protest marches are reported to have set off from the Mariam Mosque in the Munakh district of the city, with many protesters carrying black flags and funerary banners symbolically marking the death of Port Said’s free-trade zone.

Amongst the demands articulated are the scrapping of the new tariff, the resignation of Port Said’s Governor General Ismail Ezz al-Din, and ensuring the establishment of a free-trade zone in the canal city.

Since last year, the state has talked about the establishment of a free-trade zone in Port Said, but authorities now seem to be moving in the opposite direction.

To the dismay of store owners this week, customs authorities moved to impose a new tariff on imported goods, amounting to the equivalent of $US14 per kilogram of merchandise, regardless of what is being imported.

Store owners commented that if a tariff is introduced, it should take into account both the quantity and quality of the merchandise being imported, not merely its weight.

Store owners and traders interviewed in a host of local newspapers commented that commerce is their only source of income, as there are virtually no alternate employment opportunities in the Port Said governorate. Well over half of this city’s residents are estimated to be involved in or reliant on trade and commerce.

State-owned Al-Ahram newspaper reported that the container terminal in Port Said dockyard is backlogged due to store owners’ refusal to claim their merchandise or to pay the new tariff.