Peak Selling Season of Saudi Shemagh

 A seller displays dozens of shemaghs, as sales reach their peak at the end of Ramadan. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
A seller displays dozens of shemaghs, as sales reach their peak at the end of Ramadan. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
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Peak Selling Season of Saudi Shemagh

 A seller displays dozens of shemaghs, as sales reach their peak at the end of Ramadan. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
A seller displays dozens of shemaghs, as sales reach their peak at the end of Ramadan. (Asharq Al-Awsat)

Experts in the manufacturing and import of the Saudi shemagh revealed that this traditional dress has reached the highest annual sales season, recording sales estimated at about 900 million riyals annually.

They pointed to new consumer trends, especially among the younger generation, as a number of international brands have joined the race to acquire the biggest share of the market.

The shemagh is a traditional garment for men in the Arabian Gulf region and some Arab regions in Iraq, Jordan, Syria and Yemen, where it is considered part of the culture men’s clothing, whether at work or during social events and others.

In remarks to Asharq Al-Awsat, CEO of Al-Imtiaz Company Ltd., Fahd bin Abdulaziz Al-Ajlan, said that the volume of the shemagh market ranged between 700 and 900 million riyals annually.

He added that between 9 and 11 million shemaghs and ghutras were sold annually, stressing that the percentage of sales during Eid al-Fitr season and other holidays represented nearly 50 percent of the annual sales volume.

Regarding market and consumer trends, Al-Ajlan indicated that the majority of consumers of the shemagh and ghutra belonged to the young generation born between 1997 and 2012.

He noted that international brands, such as Pierre Cardin, S.T. Dupont, Cerruti 1881 and others, have joined the shemagh and ghutra market, contributing to raising the quality and specifications of the product.

For his part, Nasser Al-Hamid, manager of a shemagh shop in Riyadh, explained that the sales increase in the last ten days of Ramadan every year and reach their peak in the last two nights before Eid al-Fitr.

Hamid also noted that the market has witnessed, in the last ten years, a variety of new designs and brands, paving the way for a greater competition between companies in terms of quality and price, and in marketing campaigns.



Trump Says He Will Introduce 25% Tariffs on Autos, Pharmaceuticals and Chips 

New trucks crowd a parking lot at the GM assembly plant in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada September 24, 2019. (Reuters)
New trucks crowd a parking lot at the GM assembly plant in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada September 24, 2019. (Reuters)
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Trump Says He Will Introduce 25% Tariffs on Autos, Pharmaceuticals and Chips 

New trucks crowd a parking lot at the GM assembly plant in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada September 24, 2019. (Reuters)
New trucks crowd a parking lot at the GM assembly plant in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada September 24, 2019. (Reuters)

US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he intends to impose auto tariffs "in the neighborhood of 25%" and similar duties on semiconductors and pharmaceutical imports, the latest in a series of measures threatening to upend international trade.

On Friday, Trump said levies on automobiles would come as soon as April 2, the day after members of his cabinet are due to deliver reports to him outlining options for a range of import duties as he seeks to reshape global trade.

Trump has long railed against what he calls the unfair treatment of US automotive exports in foreign markets.

The European Union, for instance, collects a 10% duty on vehicle imports, four times the US passenger car tariff rate of 2.5%. The US, though, collects a 25% tariff on pickup trucks from countries other than Mexico and Canada, a tax that makes the vehicles highly profitable for Detroit automakers.

EU trade chief Maros Sefcovic will meet with US counterparts - Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Trump's nominee to be US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett - in Washington on Wednesday to discuss the various tariffs threatened by Trump.

Asked whether the EU could avoid reciprocal tariffs he proposed last week, Trump repeated his claim that the EU had already signaled it would lower its tariffs on US cars to the US rate, although EU lawmakers have denied doing so.

He said he would press EU officials to increase US imports of cars and other products.

PHARMA, CHIPS DUTIES

Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on Tuesday that sectoral tariffs on pharmaceuticals and semiconductor chips would also start at "25% or higher", rising substantially over the course of a year.

He did not provide a date for announcing those duties and said he wanted to provide some time for drug and chip makers to set up US factories so that they can avoid tariffs.

Trump said he expected some of the biggest companies in the world to announce new investments in the United States in the next couple of weeks. He provided no further details.

Since his inauguration four weeks ago, Trump has imposed a 10% tariff on all imports from China, on top of existing levies, over China's failure to halt fentanyl trafficking. He also announced, and then delayed for a month, 25% tariffs on goods from Mexico and non-energy imports from Canada.

He has also set a March 12 start date for 25% tariffs on all imported steel and aluminum, eliminating exemptions for Canada, Mexico, the European Union and other trading partners. Trump also announced that these tariffs would apply to hundreds of imported downstream products made of steel and aluminum, from electrical conduit tubing to bulldozer blades.

Last week, he directed his economic team to devise plans to impose reciprocal tariffs that match the tariff rates of every country product-by-product.

SHELVED CAR TARIFFS

An auto import tariff of 25% would be a game-changer for a global auto industry that is already reeling from uncertainty caused by Trump's tariff drama.

A similar drama played out in 2018 and 2019 during Trump's first term, when the Commerce Department conducted a national security investigation into auto imports and found that they weakened the domestic industrial base. Trump had threatened car tariffs of 25% at that time, but ultimately took no action, allowing the tariff authority from that probe to expire.

But some of the research that went into the 2018 investigation may be reused or updated as part of a new automotive tariff effort.