Port Said is a well-planned city, laid out on a checkerboard pattern with wide, straight streets intersecting at right angles. It originated as a European town with two neighbourhoods, the European quarter (Al-Afrang) on the west bank of the Suez Canal and the Arab quarter on the canal’s east bank.
Diaaeddin Al-Qadi, a Port Said historian and author of the Encyclopaedia of the History of Port Said, said that “the primary reason for the establishment of Port Said was to serve as a gateway to the Suez Canal. It was famous for its wide range of goods even before it was legally designated as a free zone, and this was largely because of the presence of many foreign communities and its historical reputation as a cosmopolitan city.”
“In the early 1950s, before the 1956 Tripartite Aggression on Egypt, it was common to see Italian, Greek, and French people in cafés, markets, and cinemas in Port Said, with each community having its own churches and community centres,” Al-Qadi said.
“The most famous neighbourhood was Al-Afrang, where there were some 15 different nationalities. This was in addition to the city’s tourist activity, as many visitors came to see Port Said, and naval officers often brought their relatives to visit it.”
During the 1920s and up until the 1950s, foreign communities led commercial activity in Port Said. The Greek community dominated the retail trade. “Greek merchants took control of part of Egypt’s domestic trade after German submarines disrupted European trade routes during World War II. They later made deals with Far Eastern countries and set up large warehouses and storage facilities in Port Said to distribute goods to cities across Egypt,” Al-Qadi said.
One of the main commercial areas in the Al-Afrang area was Commerce Street, now called Al-Nahda Street. Its location near the port gave it a strategic advantage and made it a central hub for trade and exchange, featuring around 300 Greek-run shops, including well-known stores such as Boudoah, Selecta, and Mikado.
Meanwhile, the first modern food market in Port Said was the Al-Shahid Attout Market, established in 1870 by Greek national Lovzides Poul on Pharaoh Street. The market still operates today and is often known as the Bazaar Market.
The city’s Italian community dedicated its efforts to developing and running various types of hotels and dining establishments, including confectionery shops, bars, and restaurants.
“Travellers to and from India would stop at Port Said, and as ships paused to refuel, their passengers would inevitably discover the city. It was here that Simon Arzt flourished as the owner of one of the world’s then largest trading houses,” Al-Qadi said.
Arriving in Port Said in 1869, the year of the Suez Canal’s inauguration, Simon Arzt, a Jewish merchant (1814-1910) whose origin is disputed, was famous for tobacco. He opened his first store on Commerce Street, and his tobacco and cigarette boxes were decorated with colourful oriental motifs, bearing his name and portrait and becoming a globally recognised brand.
His image also appeared on postcards that circulated around the world.
“The store sold a wide range of imported goods, including items from Malta and China, Damascene silverware, embroidery, and Egyptian and Indian clothing. All these things were offered at fixed prices, without the bargaining that went on in most shops at that time,” Al-Qadi said.
In 1923 the store was moved to a new location overlooking the port, becoming a major commercial establishment. It covered an area of 2,000 square metres and had a 40-metre frontage on the street. It had a large entrance hall with shopping galleries on two floors.
Abdel-Rahman Moussa, a retired engineer at the Suez Canal Authority (SCA), says that “there were a number of shops operating under the free zone system, among them the Simon Arzt store, where goods could be sold directly to foreign ships. All such operations were under customs supervision.”
The free zone system was already in place in Port Said long before late president Anwar Al-Sadat’s 1977 decree officially making the city into a free zone.
“The ships that docked in Port Said would unload their cargo directly at the entrance of the store, allowing passengers to purchase everything they needed for their long journeys, from tropical hats and muslin bed covers to their favourite scented soaps, and, of course, the famous Simon Arzt cigarettes,” Moussa said.
“The store also offered a full range of services, including a hairdressing salon and beauty products for women, a flower shop, a photography studio, and even its own post office, which allowed people to step onto the quay and send letters to their loved ones using distinctive Egyptian stamps and a local postmark.”
The economy of Port Said at that time relied almost entirely on maritime services and trade linked to navigation, such as supplying ships and selling goods directly to vessels passing through the Suez Canal.
“My older brother, Al-Arabi, worked as a bumboat operator in the port before I began working as an engineer in the SCA,” Moussa said.
Working on the bumboats emerged as a maritime trading activity, its name deriving from an English expression. These boats would approach ships arriving to transit the Suez Canal, either by heading to the quays where the vessels docked or by sailing out to them, and their operators would sell goods to passengers in exchange for foreign currency or through barter.
“Each bumboat operator had his own specialised goods to sell. Some dealt in clothing and sports jackets, while others focused on leather goods of all kinds, such as suitcases, backpacks, wallets, and handbags,” Moussa said.
“My brother was especially known for selling wooden boxes inlaid with brass rings and decorated with glass or quartz, a material capable of cutting glass. On one occasion, he traded one of these boxes for a gold ring set with three diamonds from a German sailor in the late 1960s.”
Bumboat operators typically spoke several languages, including English, Italian, and French, which they learned through listening and practical experience. They also had their own distinctive way of moving, which set them apart from other professions.
From this emerged the “bumboat dance”, which is performed through a series of rhythmic movements and is accompanied by songs and popular chants set to music produced by a simsimiya, a traditional string instrument.
“Only about 200 bumboats were still active by the 1960s, while the rest belonged to the older generation who had retired from the profession due to age.”
Law 24/1976 designated the city of Port Said as a free zone. This was followed by Law 12/1977 that set out the free-zone system. Under these laws, imports could be made without restrictions using a tax number and commercial register issued in Port Said without the need for other import licenses.
LICENSING: In 1980, the first import-licensing system was introduced in order to rationalise the import of certain goods that had flooded the markets, such as ready-made garments, textiles, and cosmetic products.
Annual quotas were allocated to Port Said traders based on their most recent import operations for these goods, in terms of both quantity and value.
“Legally, any person originally from Port Said was entitled to benefit from importing products without paying customs duties, unlike visitors from other governorates who were required to pay the prescribed customs fees.” said Yasser Hassan, a former customs officer.
Over time, the city’s commercial landscape developed, and markets such as Al-Hamidi and Al-Tijari emerged as the most famous ones in Port Said, a position they retain to this day.
“These markets displayed imported fabrics, globally branded footwear, Italian and German cookers, fine Japanese-made porcelain sets, and Swiss and French sweets and chocolates. They had a large range of Lebanese products. By contrast, the markets in other governorates were still largely limited to locally produced goods, such as Bata shoes, Telemasr televisions, and Ideal refrigerators,” Hassan said.
The 1977 law allowed tax-free goods to leave Port Said for personal use only and prohibited the exit of commercial quantities.
“Demand was very high among the residents of all the governorates, and heavy crowding at the passenger customs terminal led to staff being seconded from other government authorities, as well as from the customs departments in Cairo and Alexandria, to cover the shortages,” he added.
“Buses lined Atef Sadat Street along its entire length, and I recall that during this period the number of smugglers also increased. Men and women wore several layers of clothing over their own garments to smuggle goods out of Port Said.”
In 1980, a decision was issued to limit the import of certain goods into Port Said, leading to the introduction of the green import card called the Murshid 1. This card applied to specific goods, including clothing, textiles, and cosmetic products, and it made them only importable by card holders and within fixed quotas.
As a result, the total annual value of imports into the city was capped at LE25 million. Following this, Cabinet Decree 695 imposed import charges on 15 goods, including watches and their components, spectacles and accessories, rubber tyres, and car cassette players, due to the ease of smuggling them through customs posts.
The charges led to significant price increases. The decree also applied to vehicles, which had previously been imported without limits on engine capacity. Under the new rules, engine capacity for free-zone vehicles owned by Port Said residents was limited to 1,500 cc.
“Any person born in Port Said, or who had lived there for more than 20 years, could purchase a vehicle under the free-zone system and register it as such, meaning no customs duties were paid. The vehicle could travel from Port Said to any other governorate, but it could not leave the city without a special customs logbook. People from outside Port Said had to pay full customs duties,” Hassan said.
After Egypt joined the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1995 and then became a member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the country committed itself to slowly reducing customs duties and opening up to imports, allowing foreign goods to be sold in all the governorates. This continued until the issuance of Law 6/2013, which reorganised the free-market system in Port Said.
Port Said today is well known for its trade in second-hand clothing, locally known as bala, a term derived from the English word “bale”. Ibrahim Tira, a trader on Al-Hamidi Street, said that “I have worked in this field since I was in the first year of preparatory school, and at that time the most well-known bala trader was Ahmed Khodeir.”
Bala clothing is imported from European countries such as Germany, France, Belgium, and Italy. It is sorted by hand and classified into grades, mainly grade one and grade two. Sometimes the bales of clothes include well-known international brands such as Chanel, Victoria’s Secret, and American Eagle. According to Tira, “prices range from around LE50 to as much as LE2,000 per item, depending on the grade.”
“Customers come from Cairo, Mansoura, Sharqiya, and Tanta to look at what is on offer, with women being the most frequent buyers. However, commercial activity is no longer what it was. Al-Hamidi Street used to be heavily crowded with visitors, and in the past the scent of American apples filled the area,” he said.
“Actors also visited the market to buy clothing for their work, most notably Adel Imam and Soad Hosni during the making of the film Al-Mashbouh.”
Now domestic tourism has become the city’s main attraction rather than its markets. Today, the latter operate according to seasonal cycles and specialise in European second-hand clothing.
Bazaar Street is still famous for its large number of shops selling imported sweets, especially chocolate, which are sold at prices lower than their original retail value.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 26 March, 2026 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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