The muck'n'brass millionaire.

Jennie Street recently met an extraordinary entrepreneur in Eritrea - a man who has made a financial success out of his inventiveness and a never-say-die attitude. Yet, instead of emulating him, there are some who continue to place obstacles in his path.

When you ask him how he makes his money, Mr Ronen Ilan has a ready answer: "I get my hands dirty, that's how I make my money," he says. Mr Ilan, an Israeli who is running potentially the most profitable business in Eritrea asks: "Do you think I became wealthy by sitting in an office supervising?" Far from it. Dressed in old work clothes and sharing a simple three-roomed house with his fellow agriculturist, Mr Isaac Zinger, he does not project the usual image of a millionaire although his drive and initiative give a few clues.

A farmer, businessman, tourist boat-and fishing trawler-owner, Mr Ilan established himself in Israel at the age of 32 when he invented a machine for killing the weeds that grow around cotton. His luck turned when he became a fugitive from Egypt after his trawler was impounded by the country's authorities and he was flung in jail. "Imprisonment in an Arab country for an Israeli means certain death," Mr Ilan explains grimly. However, he managed to escape by exploiting a special sight defect which, he claims, helps him to see laterally and work out problems. It was after this that Mr Ilan made his way to Eritrea to the village of Adi Nefas where he set up a farm mainly growing flowers and fruit, in 1994.

"I have never erected electricity lines before but when the Electric Authority told us it didn't have the people to do it for us, I worked with the villagers and we did it ourselves," he laughs. Mr Ilan had never built a dam before either but with the help of local women, a dam has been constructed to store water for the farm. He has also discovered an underground river and through Dr Tesfai Girmatsion, the Minister of Agriculture, persuaded the Ministry of Defence to relinquish a piece of land for his farm.

He has restored scrap vehicles and farm equipment that he found lying about while he was looking for new farm sites. "I paid Birr 50 for that cart," he says pointing to a 1940s British army two-wheeler. "We've restored and it's used to bring the flowers from the field to the packing shed. I've bought virtually nothing new." Even a small bulldozer he bought at auction for Birr 3,450 would have cost Birr 250,000 new.

Computerised pipe

The farm is a joint venture between Mr Ilan, the Ministry of Agriculture and the highland village of Adi Nefas which is just three kilometres from Asmara. The flowers are watered by 34,000 metres of drip irrigation pipes which is entirely computerised. Refrigerated packing sheds will soon be used to pack the produce for export. He has planted 1.5m carnation plants on 6.5 hectares and 6,000 apple trees (including 500 for diabetics and 500 soft apples for old people with no teeth!) on another 10 hectares. Mr Ilan also has plans to erect 20km of guiding-wire nets for the flowers to grow through. "I'm only growing what we know how to do in Israel," he says.

It took two years to clear the land. Many land-mines and unexploded bombs were unearthed - this was a battlefield during the struggle and the farm is littered with bunkers - but both Mr Ilan and Mr Zinger were trained in the Israeli military so they defused them all themselves. "No-one has been injured," reports Mr Ilan proudly.

The Ministry put up Birr 6.5m and Mr Ilan acquired a personal loan of about Birr 31m from the World Bank. Success seems imminent: Even before planting the flowers he had buyers in Holland, Germany and Israel. Although Mr Ilan will take the profits, there is a closed-shop agreement that the only workers will be from Adi Nefas. Indeed, the village has struck a goldmine with its partnership in the project. "The village is taking home about Birr 50,000 per month in salaries," he reports. Infact having witnessed the success of the project, the villagers took out a loan of Birr 4m last year to become shareholders in the company. Good times ahead maybe, but it was not always like that.

"When I first came to persuade them to grant me some land, they thought I was another white man coming to take it from them like the Italians did," Mr Ilan recalls. "Some were in favour of the farm but others strongly opposed. Now, they're all convinced."

He aims to bring the price of apples on the local market down to between Birr 2 to Birr 4 per kilo. "Now they cost Birr 30 per kilo and are imported via Saudi Arabia from Chile. I will export to Saudi Arabia before long," he promises, "and we shall have so many carnations after we have sent the best for export that we'll be hard-pressed to give them away. We'll probably have to burn the unexportable flowers." He proposes to purchase a plane to transport the fruit and flowers because of the difficulties of finding airlines that are willing to charter planes reliably.

The situation is quite the contrast with the women of Adi Nefas. "The women are the best workers, they work harder and more willingly. When I wanted to build the office the men demanded Birr 40 a day. I told them their wages of Birr 10 were better than any other agricultural worker but they refused to agree so I sacked them all.

"Now the grandmothers of the village have done the work on my wages. We had to take down the first wall six times before it was fight but now they are excellent construction workers," Mr Ilan explains.

A clinic, a cafeteria, a kindergarten and housing for the workers with hot water heated by solar energy are also being built. Mr Ilan will employ two kindergarten teachers and he and Mr Zinger will provide healthcare thanks to their military medical training.

Originally, Mr Ilan went to Ethiopia to try and establish a similar business but a number of problems pushed him up to Eritrea. "No-one has ever asked for a bribe here," he says but at the same time, admits to feeling exasperated with the Eritreans' lack of business knowledge or understanding which is putting the employment prospects of the villagers in jeopardy.

In August, the Ministry of Labour ordered Mr Ilan to employ all his workers throughout the year in order to provide them with more job security. Mr Ilan argues that the work is seasonal and if the locusts come, he has to lay-off his employees unless he is prepared to go bankrupt.

Moreover, Mr Ilan's savings and the villagers' commitment provide a record that contradicts the order. Looking to the future, he was planning to employ a further 1,000 people but if the Ministry insists, he shall simply mechanise the whole farm which will require about 16 workers only.

"I don't need the money," insists Mr Ilan. "If Eritrea does not want my business then I can go elsewhere but I love the village and feel sad about what may happen."

That is not the sum of the problems either. It took ages to get a telephone connection and when that finally occured, Mr Ilan had to pay for 53 lines or none at all. "I gave 52 to the village and now they are discussing which families will get the lines," he laughs.

The reels of red tape at the ports of Massawa and Asab mean Mr Ilan faces major problems with shipping plants, chemicals and equipment that he is importing from abroad. Presently, the only shipping line scheduled into Eritrea has stopped for this very reason. "I cannot fly chemicals here and the cost of air freight will make the project less profitable," he sighs.

"Eritrea is six times the size of Israel and has far more water, plus an endless supply of labour It is blessed. They can do so much if they turn their mind to it," Mr Ilan comments. "The apple trees I've brought think they're in a holiday camp; the weather is perfect with sun everyday, cool nights and rain most months. In Israel we'd lose 10% of the crop. Here, we haven't lost one even though they sat in an Israeli airport for three months because of transport problems."

Eritrea has never seen anything quite like this before. Cynics might still be saying "we'll wait and see" but if present progress is anything to go by and if the labour and transport problems are solved, the dynamic trio of Mr Ilan, Mr Zinger and the villagers of Adi Nefas, will soon put Eritrea on the investors' global map.