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EDITORIAL
»I see boom times ahead of us«, wrote Ahmed Sedky to zenith BusinessReport on 5
February 2011 from his Blackberry in Cairo. Sedky, the entrepreneur son of a German
mother and former Egyptian premier Atef Sedky, who served for nearly ten
years under ex-President Hosni Mubarak, added that the process of moving towards a
democracy would inject unprecedented power into the economy. When he wrote those
lines, Mubarak was a long way from conceding defeat. Western media were worried
about the Islamic threat – with many fearing the army would let their weapons do the
talking. So where was Sedky’s optimism coming from?
The revolutionary uprisings within the Arab world initially unnerved European investors,
but they do offer opportunities. After all, in the corrupt dictatorial systems, only
those who knew the right functionaries could achieve anything – and that principle applied
equally to local entrepreneurs and foreign companies. Major conglomerates managed
just fine on that basis, but small to medium-sized enterprises often had to wait at the
back of the queue before entering any markets, despite their desired expertise. Organisations
and business facilitators sold their »exclusive access« to dictators – and sometimes
that was their only source of income.
In the societies of the Arab world, there are partners who want to go achieve something
and young, educated workers. They have long seen themselves as the losers of the globalisation
trend – and that is all about to change. Rainer Herret, head of the German-Arab
Chamber of Industry and Commerce in Cairo, joined the demonstrators in Tahrir Square
and then wrote a column about it for zenith BusinessReport (page 10).
For about five years, Qatar had clearly been working on rising to the rank of smallest
world power of all time – as the diplomatic go-between, major investor and now host of
the Football World Cup 2022. zenith reporter Nils Metzger investigated the strategies of
the »Qatar Investment Authority«. In her interview, Qatar expert Carla Everhardt presents
a checklist for entrepreneurs wanting to venture into the Qatar market.
But the cover story of this issue is about Turkey, the economic power now flexing its
muscles not only in Europe but also in the Middle East. For decades, the economic performance
of this country has not kept pace with its political aspirations. Turkey had been
accumulating debt and earning a reputation as a country of emigrants. But 50 years after
the signing of the German labour recruitment agreement for Turkish guest workers, many
German-Turks are thinking about returning – and not out of homesickness, but for
economic reasons.
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