Spirit of Business Revived in Somalia : Africa: Ships are steaming into Mogadishu with a vast array of goods. And entrepreneurs relish the absence of a government bureaucracy.

Half a dozen rusty freighters docked at the port here a few days ago, rocking gently in the harbor as workmen unloaded valuable cargo for this hungry country.

But not one of the ships carried so much as a kernel of relief food. Instead, they were laden with candy, spaghetti, tires, children’s clothing, cement, mineral water, rock diamonds, foam mattresses, barrels of gasoline and other commercial goods. The ocean air was thick with the scent of fresh tea leaves--and with the shouts of Somalis doing business.

“Business is really picking up,” said Salah Sharif Nur, 28, an importer receiving a shipment of 40,000 girls’ dresses and 3,000 pairs of rubber sandals. He paid $90,000 cash for the goods in Dubai a few weeks ago and now planned to sell them, for a 10% profit, to street traders from his heavily guarded warehouse in Mogadishu.

“My old stores are still closed here,” Nur said. “But there is more peace now, and more people are being fed. That’s why I’m bringing in clothes.”

It has been at least two years since Somalia has seen such a surge of healthy business activity. And though the free market is pretty raw here, sometimes resembling a “Road Warrior” movie with Adam Smith in the lead role, it is functioning again nevertheless.

Since December, when the American troops first arrived to restore order here, more than 100 commercial ships, mostly from Mombasa, Kenya, and Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, have docked in Mogadishu’s port, flooding the street markets with a vast array of goods.

Prices are fairly reasonable, too, thanks to the absence of any functioning government. Customs duties once ranged from 100% to 200%; hefty bribes to officials were a regular cost of doing business. But that is history.

The resurgence of commerce is not all one way, either. The country has chalked up a few exports on its balance sheet in the past few months, including the sale of 2.5 million pounds of fruit to Italy and several hundred thousand cattle to other parts of Europe.

U.N. officials, relief workers and journalists have helped fuel the economy, spending upward of $100 a day for rental cars and accompanying hired guns. And the free-market value of the U.S. dollar has remained steady at about 4,000 Somali shillings, making the local currency twice as strong today as it was last year.

The United Nations still is the country’s biggest employer and probably will be for some time. And while entrepreneurs are grateful for the absence of a government bureaucracy, doing business is no easy task in a country without a single functioning bank or telephone. All transactions are in cash or by barter. Without access to bank loans, Somali business people have had to pool their resources.

Yet the entrepreneurial spirit in Somalia, which dates back centuries, remains undaunted, and the small but significant economic rebirth it has fueled has been mostly unaffected by renewed clashes earlier this month between U.N. forces and a local Somali warlord.

In a quiet neighborhood of the capital, not far from the bombed-out headquarters of the warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid, a dozen Somalis were constructing a building of concrete and stone the other day. Overseeing the labor was Hassan Mahamoud, 42, a father of 12 who plans to open a restaurant in the building.

Like most business people in Mogadishu, Mahamoud has steadfastly refused to take sides--either in the previous civil wars or in recent battles between U.N. troops and Aidid. But he knows his new venture hasn’t a prayer of succeeding without peace, and he criticizes the United States and other foreign governments for what he believes is their failure to deliver on the promises of help.

“At first, we were happy to have these troops here. They helped us,” Mahamoud said. “But they are shooting now, not helping.”

The recent history of Somalia, though, suggests that the chances of a political settlement without outside intervention are small. As controversial as the U.N. troops have become, few here doubt that, if they left today, the nation would dissolve into anarchy again.

But as long as there is fighting in Mogadishu--where the night sorties of helicopter gunships keep the populace awake, nervous and irritable--the business recovery will be limited; commercial flights from Nairobi and Djibouti, on which business people rely, have been interrupted often by U.N. military operations.

The widespread crime that has gripped the capital appears to be slowly diminishing, however. Police have returned to duty on the U.N. payroll.

But the police remain outgunned by most criminals, the judicial system remains moribund and the United Nations has fallen way behind on officers’ $90-a-month salaries. A policeman at the port the other day, asked how long it had been since he was paid, held up three fingers. Three months. When did he think he’d get his paycheck? “They say tomorrow, or the day after,” he said, shrugging.

The United Nations owes police countrywide more than $1 million, but officials say it is difficult to distribute salaries in a country without banks.

At the port in Mogadishu, Somali police, aided by a few U.S. Marines, provide protection for importers collecting their shipments.

But deliveries to a risky country like Somalia require cash up front, and insurance is a long-forgotten luxury, unobtainable at any price.

Despite those difficulties, though, importers accustomed to years of difficult government bureaucracy relish the new free-market atmosphere.

“Now is the best time for business,” said Adan Ahmed, 44, as his workers loaded 200 barrels of gasoline onto trucks at the port. “We are free.”