Business

In 1960, Nazha & Darwish was established with headquarters in Damascus as the first air cargo agent in Syria. Since then, the company has expanded, diversified, and upgraded in terms of both facilities and range of rendered services. With the aim to handle international ocean freight, the company opened offices in Lattakia and Tartous and at the Syrian borders with Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey to ensure best cargo freight services. Since 1996, the company has been the sole representative for the Marriott group, with services including room reservations and conference bookings at any Marriott hotel worldwide. FW: held an exclusive interview with Nazha & Darwish’s director general Samer Darwish.

The long delayed opening of the Damascus Stock Exchange (DSE) is again back on the table, though Syrian market watchers may be taking the news that trading will start within a few months with a pinch of salt. On August 11, Syrian Deputy Prime Minister Abdallah Dardari said the Damascus bourse would be launched before the end of the year, whether or not all of the technical requirements had been put in place. “Before the end of this year, even if it means trading on a chalk board, I told them they have to start dealing,” Dardari said in an interview with Business International Middle East.

It is somewhat agreed among economists that the credit market crunch started during the term of Alan Greenspan, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve system from 1987 to 2006, as he lowered the interest rate to speed economic growth. This is not the whole story; The crisis may have been close to thirty years in the making.

The crisis may have had its roots in the early 1980s, when much of the world followed the lead of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan who removed exchange controls and allowed capital to move freely around the world. The result was a huge increase in capital flows around the globe from multinational investors searching for the best return on investment.

Fadi Ghandour: Promoting the science of entrepreneurship

Aramex has had a busy summer this year. From rebranding to introducing environmentally friendly courier bags, the company has been busy making huge strides on so many levels. By creating the new post of “Chief Compliance and Suitability Officer,” Aramex seems to be continuing to lead the way in the field of corporate social responsibility, adding pressure on peer businesses still trying to figure out the difference between marketing stunts and CSR initiatives that can leave a long-term impact on society. Fadi Ghandour, CEO and founder of Aramex, speaks to Ruba Saqr about entrepreneurship and running an eco-socially-responsible business.

Market crash, credit crisis, cash crunch, and recession; everyday, investors are bombarded with alarming titles and hundreds of breaking news bulletins about the meltdown of stock markets worldwide. Enough has been said about the crisis itself, and it is the way out that has now to be examined. For despite the dark outlook, there is definitely light at the end of the tunnel.
Investors at this stage can choose to either stay out of the game and watch the big boys bungee jump with stocks and file for Chapter 11, or consider opportunistic investments and innovative financial structures. While current market conditions make the first option more likely to be adopted by the public, smarter investors will favor the second one.

Peter Wodtke, a former banker and current investor, recently wrapped up his fourth visit to Syria, aimed at raising money to invest in existing Syrian companies. “Our aim is for $100 million,” he told FW: in an interview conducted during his stay in Damascus. “We are not talking real estate or banking, but traditional Syrian manufacturing companies. We can help by bringing money, international partners, and technology to the Syrian market.” The decision to come to Syria was made when he and his wife came as tourists in 2007. She loved the country, he laughingly comments, quoting her telling him, “I like it. You can do anything you want in this country!

Born in New York in 1934, and raised briefly in Geneva and then Paris, Peter Wodtke studied European Civilization at Princeton University and served in the US Army before joining Citibank at its Hong Kong branch in 1958. In 1966, he came to the Middle East, first as branch manager then as vice-president for the region, and was based in Beirut, Lebanon. “I was on very good terms with the Chairman,” he recalls. “He considered me high potential.

Not all companies have values but enduringly successful ones do. Currently, great attention is being paid to vision, mission, culture and values of organizations than ever before, an overwhelming requirement to be founded. What are these various elements, and why are they so important?

Amr Sadek

Values are symbols of well structured and designed organizations, and can’t be neglected or ignored, because they define the road to success and prosperity, and a common language that unify all parties and elements in the organization. Organizational values and culture are more important today than at any other time because the personal and societal context within which business operates is changing.
Organizational culture founded on values, beliefs and norms that are embraced by leaders daily – in what they say and what they do – are those that will take root and remain. However, we are not talking about manifesting illusions or posters on the wall, but a way of living. Each of us is holding deep inside him a certain culture and values that were accumulated through years of experience.

Continued drought conditions in Syria are ravaging not only farmland but the economy, raising imports, undermining key export industries and putting pressure on the government’s program of reducing price support for basic commodities.

In particular, the drought has devastated Syria’s wheat belt, with most of the main grain-growing regions this year receiving around 25% of average rainfall.
In its latest assessment of the Syrian farming sector, the US Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agriculture Service predicted wheat production to be the worst since the droughts of 1989-1991, when total production fell by 50% to between 1.0-2.1m tons. The department’s report predicted a 2008-09 harvest of around 2.5m tons, approximately 1.5m tonnes or 38% less than last year.
More recent figures suggest that the US estimates may have been optimistic. A report by Bank Audi in August said this season’s wheat harvest would fall to 2m tonnes, a 17-year low. If the prediction is correct, this will not be sufficient to meet Syria’s needs for wheat in the coming year.
As of mid-August, which is towards the end of the main harvesting season, the country had amassed just 962,000 tons of wheat. This is well under half of Syria’s domestic consumption requirements, according to financial news agency Bloomberg, basing its report on official Syrian figures.
Such is the situation that China announced on September 8 that it was providing $500,000 in drought relief to Syria. Syrian Minister of Agriculture Adel Safar said the funds would be used to purchase seeds to be given to farmers for the coming planting season.

Decorated with high honors from Germany, Austria, Senegal, Brazil, and Switzerland, Saeb Nahas has been a prominent businessman from Syria since the late 1960s. A heavyweight in business and industry, his investments can be found in various domains, not only in Syria but internationally, and throughout the Arab world.

In addition to business, Nahas attainted several posts that have added to his already rich and prolific career, including Honorary Consul for Mexico in Syria, head of the Arab side at the Arab-French Chamber of Commerce, and Vice-President of the Arab-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry. He is chairman of the tourism committee at the Syrian-Russian Business Council and a board member of the Syrian-Lebanese Businessmen Council. Topping the list is Nahas’ position as founder and CEO of Nahas Enterprises Group, which he started in its current form in 1970 as third generation of the family. Nahas’ importance in the relations with France was further highlighted after the latest visit by French President Nicolas Sarkozy to Syria in September 2008. He was commissioned to oversee the follow up on Syrian-French business relations in the private sector parallel to the implementation of all bilateral economic agreements signed between Damascus and Paris, in the frame of the Syrian-French Business Club based on a proposal made by President Sarkozy. FW: met with the veteran businessman at his office in Damascus, conducting this exclusive interview, shortly after Sarkozy left Syria.