Cairo 1995

Cairo 1995 Joint Venture Companies Annual Meeting Our Turkish-American Joint Venture (JV) company, which was established in Ankara in 1990, was attending the JV companies meeting organized by its American partner every year. Annual meeting was held in Cairo (Egypt) during the week of 25 April 1995. The meeting was hosted by the American Egyptian JV company. The palace belonging to an old Ottoman Pasha was turned into a luxury hotel on the banks of the Nile river in Cairo. They reserved a place for us there. The meetings were to be held in a meeting room of the same hotel-palace reserved for a week. In 1995, laptop PC usage had not yet become widespread. Only American participants gave PowerPoint presentations with their newly released PCs. In Ankara, I prepared the introductory information of our JV company on the overhead transparent sheets. What are we, when we were founded, what do we do, what can we do? What are our references? General managers and sales officials of other JV companies established around the world were attending the annual meeting. There was participation from China, India, Indonesia, Turkey, the host Egypt JVs and the USA head office. Each company introduced itself in turn in the joint meeting. I also introduced ourselves within the half hour given to me. We were generally producing industrial-sized package steam boilers under American parent company license. We had design capacity for large thermal power plant boilers, but we did not have a reference yet. The Egyptian JV company was established by the American company in order to make the unpressurized structural steel parts of the conventional type fuel oil fired power plant with a capacity of 2x325 MWe in Egypt with local means. The share of 49% belonged to the Egyptian local public steam boiler company and major share 51% to the American partner in the partnership structure. The American partner won the thermal power plant tender and established this JV partnership with a public company in 1996 in order to carry out the local fabrication of the project and fulfill the maximum domestic manufacturing responsibility, which was the tender requirement. The general manager, accounting, purchasing, production managers were American, as Americans were 51% the largest shareholder. One day in the week, they took us to the local public partner's manufacturing facilities outside of Cairo. The factory had 1200 personnel. They were manufacturing steel construction for the thermal power plant in a very large area with roof but without side walls. Plant had no sidewalls because there was no need. There was no problem of heating, but it was necessary to cool the environment to protect from the harsh sun. There was a constant natural circulation of air in the covered, open-sided space. In addition to the production of heavy steel construction of thermal power plant non-pressure components, the fabrication plant continued to manufacture low capacity fire-tube steam boilers with their own local design. The factory was equipped with the necessary machinery for the production of fire tube steam boilers. There were many welders. There were bridge cranes with a capacity of 10-15 tons to carry heavy parts in the production halls. The meeting at the hotel lasted for a week, the staff of our Egyptian host JV company did not come to the meeting on Friday because the work days of the week were different in the Egyptian business environment. That day, I visited the nearby Archeology museum. Our hotel was on the banks of the river Nile, I walked along the river Nile in the afternoon and in the evening. There were many international luxury hotels on the opposite shore. The last night they gave us dinner on one of them. We left Cairo when the meeting was over. The thermal power plant was completed in 2001. The power plant has been operating ever since. Subsequently, later on the partnership in Egypt was terminated. The American staff here took up higher positions at the US head office. The local partner continued its fire tube steam boiler manufacturing business. Later, Egyptian public electricity authority decided to build a new combined cycle thermal power plant with a new build-operate-transfer model, this time with a capacity of 2x340 MWe, next to the first thermal power plant. An American company undertook the construction of the new power plant, another American investor owned and operated the facility. Have I seen the Egyptian pyramids? On the way to the factory, I saw the pyramids from a far distance, I did not have the opportunity to go to visit them. I just visited the Archeology museum near the hotel. I bought many colorful books on Ancient Egyptian civilization from there. There were small sculptures for gifts, pictures on ancient Egyptian scrolls, but I did not see a need. On my way to Cairo, my suitcase was unlocked during transport. I could not open my suitcase at the hotel. I had to attend meetings for a week in the same dress. Fortunately, the information, catalog and transparent leaflets that I would use in the meeting were in the big carry-on briefcase next to me. On the last day, the seller at the luggage shop in the hotel shopping center unlocked it, but there was no possibility to close it. On the way back, I just closed the suitcase, I couldn't lock it, I just taped it. At the customs, nobody wanted to open my luggage. Ankara at Karanfil street they repaired the lock of the luggage store, but I never used that suitcase again. Ankara 9 May 2021