Glass trade gives villagers a buffer in difficult times

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DAKAHLIA, Egypt－In Garrah village in the northern Egyptian province of Dakahlia, residents have long overcome the region's high unemployment by making and decorating glassware for domestic use.

"You won't find a single unemployed person in this village," said Abdullatif al-Behery, a worker at a glass workshop in Garrah.

"Glassware making and decoration is almost the sole business in the village. We already beat unemployment decades ago thanks to this business," said Behery, who has been in the business for 20 years. His village now has more than 100 glass decoration workshops and a number of glassware factories.

Sitting in front of a wooden table, the 37-year-old who inherited the profession from his father was using a tiny brush to draw a red butterfly on a glass pitcher.

"The business of glassmaking and decoration started here in the 1980s when a big factory opened on the outskirts of the village," he said.

With the rising number of factories and decoration workshops opening in the village, large numbers of jobless villagers were hired, he said.

"I remember how the village looked before the glass business boomed here. People were very poor and young people migrated to the capital or other metropolitan areas in search of good jobs," he added.

According to Behery, glassware production and decoration is more like an art than a profession.

"In the workshops, workers draw and color glassware items and turn them into pieces of art. Our produce is sold nationwide," he said, adding some companies and workshops even export their products abroad.

The Egyptian Export Council for Building Materials said the country's glass exports in 2019 hit $370 million, up from $345 million in 2018.

However, impacted by the coronavirus outbreak, glass exports slumped by 22 percent in the first six months of 2020 to $154 million, down from $199 million in the same period of last year.

Egypt imported 50 percent of its glass needs until 2010, before the glass industry boom in the past decade turned it into an exporter of all types of glass.

Not far away from the workshop where Behery works, dozens of people were busy making glassware in the village's largest factory.

"This is one of the oldest factories in the village. We started here over 30 years ago," said Maher Rezk, the quality and marketing manager of the Abdallah Elsheraiy glassware factory.

"We have some machines, such as the ovens, but most of the glassmaking stages are done by hand."

Stable incomes

The 7,800 residents in the village have enjoyed stable and reasonable incomes for decades, Rezk said.

The unemployment rate in Egypt stood at 9.6 percent in the second quarter of this year, up from 7.7 percent in the first quarter, amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

At a corner of the factory, Mahmoud Karakish, a 48-year-old worker, was helping his colleagues pack up glass cups which would be delivered to other cities.

"I have been working at the factory for 25 years. I learned everything about glassmaking during these years," the father of three said.

"Everyone now has a job and income that can meet our needs."

Xinhua