The ‘Chinese Scare’: Marble and Granite Manufacturing Networks in Egypt

“The Chinese bring their own labour, their own equipment, their own means of production, they closed the circle on themselves…they use nothing Egyptian”

The supposed Chinese invasion of Shaq AlThoban – or Snake Valley – has dominated Egyptian headlines and television talk shows from the 2010s until today.  Traditionally the hallmark of Egyptian workers, artisans and entrepreneurs, the area is Egypt’s largest marble and granite manufacturing hub, exporting to over 118 countries globally. But from the early 2010s, Egyptian business-owners began to rent out their workshops to Chinese owners, leading newspapers to claim the industry was being ‘colonised by China’. Headlines decried the use of Chinese equipment, the takeover of Chinese owners and the expulsion of Egyptian workers from the Valley. Reminiscent of an earlier fear campaign around Chinese Brides and Chinese-made goods, the future of marble and granite as Egyptian products was said to be finished due to Chinese presence. 

China in Shaq AlThoban

However, over the past decade, these doomsday narratives have proven false. The Shaq AlThoban district emerged in the 1980s through the informal settling of business entrepreneurs, who set up small workshops and factories to process marble and stone blocks shipped from quarries across Egypt, including Aswan, Ain ElSokhna, Galala and Minya. Located in the southern region of Cairo in the Tora District and ‘snaking’ out into the Wadi Degla Protectorate, the region quickly became the cornerstone of Egyptian marble manufacturing, and in later years granite. According to the latest government figures, the industrial area now covers 1608 feddans (6.5 million m2), hosts 1858 workshops, employs 45,000 workers and exports to 118 countries.

Egypt’s Projects Map. The Global City of Shaq AlThoban. 

So how did this Chinese ‘colonisation’ occur? Contrary to state-led development of free trade economic zones, long-standing members of the Chinese diaspora community in Egypt began establishing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Shaq AlThoban themselves. The scale of these local investments is contested. Recent Chinese reports count 135 SMEs employing more than 2,000 Chinese workers, but there is no official survey of these entities as the area still remains largely informal in its dealings. These SMEs can take the form of factories, workshops, and companies; some are wholly funded, managed, and controlled by Chinese owners; while others are joint ventures between Chinese and Egyptian entrepreneurs. Many are Chinese Muslims who came to Egypt to learn Arabic and Islamic teachings, and decided to stay in Egypt and make a living. Their major activity is the processing of marble, granite, basalt, and other stones, which was only made possible by their local knowledge of the culture, language and business networks in Cairo. 

Many members of the Chinese diaspora have traditionally worked in the extensive export-import trade with Egypt. Their expansion into the manufacture of construction materials was triggered by the potential to export these materials, as China is one of the largest importers of Egypt’s marble, with annual exports totaling approximately $300 million USD in 2014. Local Egyptian companies exporting to China maintained close ties with the Valley’s workshops and factories, and it became clear early on that Egypt’s capacities to manufacture and produce finished stone products were limited. The local Chinese community in particular picked up on this lacuna, and entrepreneurs began to import Chinese equipment from Fujian province, a marble producing region of China, in order to expand the region’s capacities. Now China supplies about 90% of the Egyptian stone industry's machinery and equipment, which has led to advanced changes to the manufacturing of granite in particular. 

Local and Global Value Chains

These technological advancements came just in time for the Egyptian government. As local Chinese investments expanded the capacity of the Valley’s manufacturing, the local construction sector became a major client for these firms. For instance, much of the construction materials of the New Administrative Capital is sourced from the Valley to build new marble-finished ministerial buildings, and granite for emerging cities like New Alamein City’s residential compounds, hotels, and malls. These projects commissioned materials, such as grey stone granite, and thus fueled manufacturing over the past years – cushioning the blow of the difficult economic conditions facing businesses across the country. Despite being at the end of the value chain, these workshops are indispensable to the building of the government’s urban visions for a ‘New Republic’, and the efficient, timely, and high-quality products delivered by Chinese-owned businesses makes them a popular choice for many contractors.

The economic contribution of Chinese owners in Shaq AlThoban is just the tip of the iceberg. The local Chinese community in Egypt numbers approximately 10,000, with many business entrepreneurs branching out to various ventures as the construction sector continues to grow nationally and regionally. These investments present a complementary story to mainstream state-led investments by China, where provincial companies are encouraged to set up shop in newly established free economic zones. Even more macro-scale factories are envisioned in the coming years. 

Yet, these local networks of labour, ownership, and capital have direct and indirect effects that are understudied in Egypt and the region. Our research asks: What is the scale and size of the local Chinese diaspora’s contribution to Egypt’s economic growth? How do these networks interact (or not) with state-led megaprojects? What forms of cooperation and competition between Egyptian and Chinese SMEs exist? And how are these contributions framed and acknowledged within local and global value chains? We hope to start a much-needed dialogue with these long-standing Chinese communities, and recognise their everyday forms of living and working in Arab states.

Noura Wahby is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Public Policy and Administration, and Director of Middle East Studies Academic programs at The American University in Cairo. Sijia Zhao is a postgraduate student pursuing a Master's degree in Public Policy at the American University in Cairo. Currently, she is working at the China State Construction Engineering Corporation in Egypt. This blog was developed through discussions at the Mapping Connections Institute, held in Beirut between 27th – 30th May 2024 as part of the ‘Inter-Asia Week’ (Inter-Asia Partnership). The views expressed are the personal perspectives of the writers and not attributable to the Mapping Connections partner institutions.