CALIFORNIA BUSINESS MINUTE
California and Egypt
02-03-11
Hi, I am Tim Johnson and welcome to the California Business Minute.
The political unrest in Egypt provides an opportunity to illustrate how such an
uprising can affect California’s economy.
According to the US Dept of Commerce, International Trade Administration, California
is one of the Top Ten largest states exporters of goods and services to Egypt. In
2009 (the latest figures available) California exported nearly a $181 million of
goods and services; this however is down from export activity in 2008 of $211 million.
The major exports are agricultural products, computers and electronic products,
machinery and transportation equipment. However while considered a large trading
partner, Egypt ranks 50th as an export market for California. Canada, Mexico and
Japan are the Golden State’s largest trading partners. Yet export trade has seen
significant growth with Egypt, nearly a 33 percent increase in dollar value since
2005. Analysts hope that the current unrest does not negatively impact this growth.
Meanwhile California and Egypt have been world competitors in the exportation of
medium grain rice. However in 2009, Egypt, the world’s top exporter of medium grain
rice reduced its activity due to self imposed export restrictions on rice. Thus rice
growers in the US, specifically California rice growers have been left as one of the
only dependable sources of medium grain rice in the world.
While the unrest continues, many speculate on the impact it may have on the shipments
of goods through the Suez Canal, one of the world’s busiest shipping channels. However,
the canal remains under strong military control and analysts do not expect any issues.
In addition to trade, there is a variety of educational exchanges and research that is
shared between the two. For example, this week it was identified that 19 University
of California students and researchers were evacuated from Egypt due to their safety.
Additionally, archaeologists from UCLA were also evacuated from a dig they were
involved with in Egypt. The Department of State has issued a travel advisory to US
citizens travelling to Egypt impacting their large tourism market specifically with
the closure of the pyramids.
Finally, in the effort to restore some level of outside communication with Egypt,
Mountain View-based Google and San Francisco-based Twitter identified that they
joined forces to create a new "speak-to-tweet" service. The service allows people
in Egypt, who have been cut off from Internet and wireless access, to send tweets
by calling one of three international phone numbers and leaving a voicemail. The
service instantly tweets the message using the tag #egypt, with no Internet
connection required. People can listen to the messages by dialing the same phone
numbers or going to twitter.com/speak2tweet. As of Tuesday morning, more than 600
tweets had been sent using the service, which had more than 7,400 followers.
I am Tim Johnson and this has been the California Business Minute.
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