The Cotton Exchange of Alexandria

Beautiful and cosmopolitan Alexandria is the epitome of Mohammed Ali's modern Egypt and the seat of the oldest cotton market in the world. The first sale of cotton was recorded here in 1865, in the Café de l'Europe in Place des Consuls (the future Mohammed Ali square).
The cotton traders met there to bid for the fine Egyptian Karnak and Menoufi cottons and for Ashmouni, Giza and Zagora flocks and seeds.
Over the years, the sales were extended to new varieties, such as Hull, Afifi and Sakellaridis.
Reputations and contacts between business people were indispensible in order to be able to move around the square.
The best growers were courted by exporters. Timing and reliability were essential to profit.
The business of cotton quickly moved to a cafe in a nearby building, where the Association of Cotton of Alexandria (Alexandria General Produce Association then or AGPA) was founded for the trade protection of flocks and cotton seeds and global grain markets. The traditional export of onions was replaced by the new white gold.
The Alexandria Cotton Exchange rivalled that of New York and Liverpool and brought immense wealth to the cotton merchants.
Located in Mohammed Ali square, the stock exchange became the city’s symbol. Depicted in postcards, books and guides to the city, it was a focal point of the international financial community.

Of the 35 cotton brokers registered in 1950, only two were Egyptian. The administrators of the Cotton Exchange of Alexandria were a mixture of Egyptians, Levantines, and Jews, while the veteran president was the Syrian, Jules Klat Bey. Despite its ethnic mix, the British influence on the AGPA was indisputable, dominated by the large exporters Carver and Moss.
For years the city of Manchester owed almost its entire textile industry to Egyptian cotton, a producer of an incalculable fortune for the UK.

From 1950, with the land reform promoted by Nasser, control of the agricultural trade returned to the State. In July 1956, from the balcony of the Exchange, Nasser announced the opening of the Suez Canal to the international media. For a short time, the exchange of Alexandria was the symbol of Egypt in the world.