(22 May 2018) LEADIN:
Cheap Chinese mannequins are flooding the Egyptian market.
The foreign imports are damaging business for home-produced dummies.
STORYLINE:
These dummies don't know it but their very existence is under threat.
They are made from fibreglass in traditional style moulds - a difficult and time-consuming process.
And now they are being replaced by plastic Chinese versions, which are cheaper and more practical.
The plastic doesn't break easily and doesn't require maintenance, unlike the fibreglass which needs periodic touch ups.
Mannequin makers in Egypt say that the price of materials has gone up for them.
"Materials that we use are imported, but expensive," explains Islam Abdel Shafy, a worker at this mannequin factory in Kharqaniya village.
"At the beginning of my work in this profession for a long time this plate was 80 Egyptian pounds (4.5 US dollars) or 75 Egyptian pounds, now its price ranges from 640 (36 US dollars) to 650. Everyday the price increases by 10 pounds and more."
Mannequin-making in Egypt is concentrated in the village of Kharqaniya, in Qalyubia province.
However, it is very inefficient compared to the imported ones.
While China has endless production lines and large factories, the largest Kharqaniya workshop can manufacture just 20 mannequins a day, relying more on handicrafts than machinery.
"We prepare the piece and work on it. Or we carve the piece and we design a model and take it down to the market," says Abdel Shafy.
In the mannequins industry in Egypt, more than 15 thousands workers and manufacturers have been heavily affected by the imported products from China.
They used to produce mannequins of different quality, depending on what the customer wanted.
But now there is less demand.
"There is something called a popular piece and something called an investment piece, that means it's made of high quality material and the others are a lesser quality, and that depends on the cost. At first there was no such thing as popular, it was all the high-quality work," explains another worker, Shabaan Abdel Shafy.
He explains that while the prices of Chinese and Egyptian mannequins may be similar to customers, they Egyptian manufacturers are having to pay higher costs for materials.
As such, workers in the field are demanding a reduction in customs prices on raw materials and customs duties to be increased on imported Chinese imports.
Ahmed Fawzy is the owner of a mannequin factory.
He says they still export to countries throughout the Middle East but now are struggling to compete with other importers.
"The imported mannequins come in large quantities, with a similar price to the locally-made mannequins. I can't afford the locally-made mannequins, because the raw materials are expensive. The Chinese or imported mannequins are sold cheaper at their local markets, so they arrive to Egypt subsidized or at a lower price," Fawzy explains.
"We appeal to the industry official or to the Minister of Industry to look at this point - so that the manufactured product from abroad enters at a high price, while they raise the dollar and on the other hand reduce the prices of raw materials."
Without such help from the state, the workers may find themselves out of work along with the Egyptian mannequins.
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