Will Next Year Be The Beginning Of The Egyptian Ramadan Lantern End!!??

For centuries since the Fatimid era, the handmade tin Lantern has become a part if not a symbol of the holy month of Ramadan in Egypt, for centuries it was one of the jewels of the handmade industries in Egypt, for centuries Egyptian manufacturers at the famous old Cairo workshops presented various shapes for the lantern using tin, glass, wood and in the past 20 years plastic to meet the demand of all classes, ages and also uses.

but it seems that after all these centuries the famous Ramadan Lantern of Egypt has a very slight chance of survival against the Chinese Ramadan Lantern.

Abu Tarika lantern 2010

During the last ten years the Egyptian lantern industry has been facing a huge fierce competition from the cheap imported Chinese plastic lanterns that found a growing demand in the largest consumer market in the Arab world. The Chinese lanterns won a market by targeting children, it began with a simple attractive colored lantern light plastic lantern that evolved to a colored plastic with flickering light lantern then a colored plastic with flickering light and famous Ramadan songs too¹ ending to lanterns on the shapes of famous cartoon characters and famous footballers like Mohamed Abu Tarika , the star of the Egyptian national football team this year and moving lanterns that are actually toys more than lanterns.

 Each year the Chinese lantern makers present a new fashion, a new package of attractive features to children and their parents too with its very cheap prices compared to their native original lantern.

The Egyptian lantern can’t compete with the Chinese lantern, aside of its classic designs that may not sound fashionable to new generations of children; it is very expensive if we consider the raw materials used from tin and glass besides of course its manufacture cost ; unlike its Chinese counterpart , it is handmade.
The increase in raw material prices and the shortage in the trained manufacturers put the whole industry in risk.

Chinese tin lantern on the left

Despite the fierce competition the Egyptian lantern market put its bet on the adults market, whether the consumer market or the business market; many families still love to buy authentic Egyptian big glass lantern to hang it whether in their balconies or put it in their living rooms, shops and hotels love to have that expensive big glass lantern as part of their Ramadan decorations. Things seemed to be fine for a while but not too long because the Chinese lanterns have entered the tin age in Egypt.
Starting from this year Chinese lanterns importers began to import Chinese tin lantern with the same design and specifications of the famous traditional Egyptian tin lantern, this year small lanterns are imported while next year the big lanterns will arrive the Egyptian ports to start a new era for the historical industry in Egypt. The economics of the industry play an important role because again the Chinese clone is much cheaper in cost than the original Egyptian.
The Egyptian handmade lanterns will be there but on demand for a big price.

Bogi and Tamtam lanterns

Egyptian lanterns besides Chinese lanterns

Notes
1. The Chinese included the famous Ramadan songs in their lanterns.
2. I wrote a short report about this in Demotix 

Technorati Tags: Citizen Journalism,Egypt,Economy,Society,China,Ramadan 2010,Ramadan,Asia,mideast,Middle East,National,Egyptian Life