Africa Economy

Efforts to shape the geography of Egypt’s economic development in the modern era date back to the 1970s, since which time it has adopted a number of zonal and incentive-based models. Some have proved more successful than others, but in their entirety they represent a crucial asset as the government turns its attention to reversing the decline in...

The Arab world’s second-largest economy, with a GDP of $229bn in 2011 according to the World Bank, has faced exceptional economic circumstances since the start of its political transformation 18 months ago. The turbulent process set in motion then has continued in 2012, and its effects are to be seen across the nation’s balance sheet – from a...

Efforts to boost industrial output, which were gathering momentum prior to Egypt’s political unrest of 2011, are more than an attempt to simply bolster GDP growth. A persistently high unemployment rate, which grew to 9% in 2010, according to Egypt’s Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS), and reached 12.4% in 2011, has made...

It took no less than 59 years and 16 months for Egyptians to finally exercise the right to freely elect a national leader. In that regard, the popular uprising of 2011 has already delivered more than the Free Officers’ coup of 1952. But with the roles of the military and the presidency still undefined, Egyptians must still wait to see if their...

The global economic crisis that struck in 2008 propelled Egypt’s main sources of revenue – taxation, remittances, tourism and Suez Canal receipts – into significant declines. The downward trends seen across these important sources of income during 2009 demonstrated that, despites the nation’s relatively robust performance during those difficult...

Subsidies have played a significant part in the Egyptian economy since the era of President Gamal Abdel Nasser in the 1950s and 1960s – a time in which numerous Middle Eastern autocracies sought the approval of the populace through the provision of food and other essentials at below-market prices. Sardonically described as the “democracy of bread”...