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Tuesday, 6 December 2016

Last Night’s Talk Shows: Adib rails on gov’t over a train station in Aswan; Pharma looks to talk prices with PM directly; more chicken

In one of his most quotable episodes so far, Kol Youm’s Amr Adib said “it was the government that is damaging tourism” in reference to pictures taken by Japanese tourists of the dilapidated Aswan train station. Other choice barbs: “They have money for a new capital, but not for a train,” “tourism used to bring us money like roz,” random pot-shots at the (frankly very good) This is Egypt tourism promotion campaign (watch, runtime 3:55; his borderline-racist impression of the Japanese is at 1:31).

Adib’s rant had an effect: Kamel El Wazir, head of the Armed Forces’ Engineering Authority, subsequently called in to say President Abdel Fattah El Sisi, who reportedly followed Adib’s coverage on the night before, had ordered the authority to fix the station (watch, runtime: 3:34).

Adib also discussed video of what purports to be rotten tomatoes being used at a Heinz factory in Sixth of October (more on that in Basic Material + Commodities): “I hope all of this might be false … so as to not damage the company’s reputation,” he said (watch, runtime: 10:57). Adib backed another campaign to support the locally-manufactured products, named “Men Enharda Masry” (watch: runtime:1:57).
Lamees Al Hadidy spoke at length of the fertilizer industry’s push to raise prices in the wake of the float, which has sent production costs through the roof as a primary feedstock — natural gas — is priced in in USD. Sherif El Gabaly, head of the chemical industries division of the Federation of Egyptian Chambers of Commerce, called in to complain that “The government is pricing fertilizers at EGP 2,000 per tonne, while the cost of production has now reached EGP 3,000 per tonne.” (watch, runtime: 9:03).

Also on Lamees’ agenda: Talks between the government and the pharma industry on a price agreement have broken down, says industry official Alaa Ouf (watch: runtime: 4:00), and the poultry industry’s crisis is limping to a close amid the government’s decision to reverse its temporary tariff cut. All the industry could say last night is that there are vague plans to create a company that will import production inputs (watch: runtime: 6:09).

Finally, on Al Qahera Wel Nas, Ibrahim Eissa applauded the State Commissioner’s Authority on upholding a court ruling annulling the transfer of Tiran and Sanafir to Saudi Arabia, which he characterized as “a sale.” (More on the decision in the Speed Round) (watch, runtime: 38:29).

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