Misr Spinning and Weaving Company
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| Public | |
| Industry | Textile industry |
| Founded | 1927 |
| Headquarters | Nile Delta, El-Mahalla El-Kubra, Egypt |
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Key people
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Mohamed Moheb Salah Elden, (Chairman of the Board) |
| Products | Thread, cloth, clothing |
| Website | misrhelwantextile.com |
The Misr Spinning and Weaving Company (Arabic: شركة مصر للغزل والنسيج), also known as Misr Helwan or the El-Ghazl factory, is a large, publicly owned textile company located in El-Mahalla El-Kubra within the Nile Delta of Egypt, approximately 80 kilometers north of Cairo. The company's current board chairman is Mohamed Moheb Salah Elden. Egypt's largest industrial facility, Misr Helwan employs over 25,000 workers, many of whom have played an active role in Egyptian labor struggles. Large protests and strikes at Misr Helwan since 2006 contributed to the collapse of the Mubarak government, the 2011 Egyptian revolution, and the Arab Spring more generally.
The Misr Spinning and Weaving Company was founded in 1927 by a group of Egyptian businessmen in collaboration with the Misr Bank, facing Mahalla’s Tal‘at Harb Square in El-Mahalla El-Kubra. The bank, which had formed during the Egyptian uprising of 1920 and proclaimed itself to be "an Egyptian Bank for Egyptians only," began providing capital for large-scale Egyptian industrial facilities and considered Misr Spinning and Weaving to be its flagship enterprise. Egyptian economist Talaat Harb was one of those who helped establish the firm. Misr Helwan was largely staffed by workers from peasant backgrounds, many of whom worked temporarily to save and return money to their families.
Long-staple cotton had been invented in Cairo in the 1820s, becoming a staple of the Egyptian economy in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Cotton production used 2.1 million acres for cultivation after the Second World War and by the 1980s represented the second largest export in Egypt, after crude oil. Cotton production in Egypt nevertheless declined after its post-WWII peak as arable land was converted to cereal or clover production, and previous importers including India achieved cotton self-sufficiency.
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