With the government’s ambitious plans to build new infrastructure, public service, and utility facilities, Parliament passed amendments to Law 67 for 2010 in November to attract more private sector companies. Few doubts linger over the current administration’s prioritization of infrastructure, public services and utility investments. At the November Al Mal GTM investment conference, the state unveiled plans to build 45 new cities by 2052, highlighting the importance of those projects. Talking to the media in October, Hala El-Said, minister of planning and economic development, said the government wants the private sector to do most of the heavy lifting as partners…
Author: Tamer Hafez
It has been hard to miss the narrative from the government about the importance of economic cooperation with Africa’s Sub-Saharan African nations. Every two years since the current administration came to power in 2015, there has been a forum with African countries to discuss investment opportunities. In 2018, Egypt announced a strategy to facilitate exports on the continent and advocated for merging all three African blocs into the African Continental Free Trade Area. Industry and Trade Minister Nevine Gamea visited Cameroon and Senegal in June to explore trade and investment opportunities. She stressed to the media in those two countries…
As fresh university graduates seek to start careers and raise families, one of their chief goals is to own their homes. Unfortunately, that has gotten a lot more difficult in almost every major economy. “We are witnessing sections of society being shut out of parts of … cities because they can no longer afford apartments,” Berlin Mayor Micheal Mueller told Bloomberg Linea in September. At least 10 major economies have seen housing prices and rent skyrocket in 2021, increasing by double-digit percentages. That includes the United States, where the real estate market’s collapse led to the 2008 global financial crisis.…
In Egypt, which imports everything from commodities, such as wheat, to luxury items and manufacturing supplies, shipping costs and delays significantly impact business health. Since the beginning of the pandemic, freight prices have been rising at unprecedented rates. Robert Khachatyan, COO of Freight Global Logistics, said that in 2020, 90% of his cargo moved at premium rates that were nearly 10 times what they were in 2019, according to Freightos, a specialized portal. Those sudden astronomical jumps affected the prices of even the most trivial goods. Christopher Tse, CEO of Musical Electronics, a Hong Kong toymaker, has seen the cost…
On the heels of the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) belated approval of the Pfizer vaccine, President Joe Biden on Sept. 10, introduced a sweeping emergency executive order requiring companies with 100 or more employees to ensure that their workforces are fully vaccinated or produce negative COVID-19 tests at least once a week. The new requirements are a step to “combat those blocking public health,” Biden said during the announcement, noting that about 80 million Americans had not yet received their first dose. “We have tools to combat the virus … if we can come together as a country to…
When assessing economic sustainability, it’s hard to deny that Egypt has a long way to go. In the latest UN Sustainable Development Index, which the United Nations has published every year since 2015 to assess progress toward its Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), Egypt ranked 83rd out of 166 nations. However, that is a marked improvement over 2019, when the ranking was 92nd out of 162 states. Regionally, Egypt lags somewhat, given the size, diversity and sophistication of its economy. It ranks seventh among the 20 Arab states and fourth among 47 African countries. However, Egypt is No. 1 among its…
In July, many Egyptians awoke to the unexpected news that SWVL had become the first locally bred startup valued at more than $1 billion, becoming a “unicorn.” Its merger with Queen’s Gambit Growth Capital, a U.K.-based special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), values SWVL at $1.5 billion, becoming the 17th unicorn in the MENA region, according to a CNBC report in June, and the only one in Africa. SWVL is the second startup in the region to use the SPAC model, after U.A.E.-based Anghami. “The way the economics of a SPAC works, you want a billion-dollar company and that’s a very…
As companies come to grips with how their business would run under constant threats from COVID-19 variants, they need to create new robust foundations that allow them to thrive amid uncertainty. “The next pandemic might come along even before COVID-19 wanes, we don’t know,” Chun Byung-Chul, from Korea University in Seoul, told The Korea Herald in March. “What we do know is that there is going to be another one.” Such uncertainty is creating new problems for companies worldwide, especially those operating in countries with an infection resurgence after they reopened. “It’s a rolling uncertainty at this point,” said Paul…
n 2015, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi shocked the world during the Egypt Economic Development Conference by announcing the country would have a new capital with gardens the size of New York’s Central Park, the country’s first monorail and an international airport larger than London’s Heathrow. It would be home to 6.5 million people and have a “green river” bisect it, similar to the Nile in Cairo. The New Administrative Capital marks Egypt’s first attempt at building a “smart” city. “We are trying to solve all the problems we had in the past in the new capital,” Khaled el-Husseiny, spokesman for…
As the U.S. inflation rate hits its highest peak since the 2008 global financial crisis, companies and individuals are wondering if it will be temporary like 2008 or last for the long term. Inflation has reared its ugly head in the United States this year, and despite the vaccine rollout in full swing, COVID-19 infections are threatening a return. The Biden administration is working hard to curb the fallout from this inflationary cycle and cut the current rate by more than half to historical averages. Many analysts now label inflation in the U.S. economy as the ultimate litmus test that…