Cultivating one of the best fabrics in the world, long-thread Egyptian cotton, and blessed with a rich heritage from the pharaohs, Greeks, Romans, Islamic eras, and Western influences, Egypt has all the makings of a fashion destination. However, local fashion design and high-end garment manufacturing are still budding sectors. “Most designers rush to start their own businesses,” said Susan Thabet, founder of the Egyptian Fashion & Design Council (EFDC), an organization helping local fashion startups, in an interview with Forbes in June 2024. “Most of them are one-man shows, which makes building a sustainable business and expansion very difficult.” Meanwhile,…
Author: Tamer Hafez
With his sights set on reviving the United States as an “industrial superpower,” President Donald Trump sees fossil fuels as the dominant energy source. “We will drill, baby, drill,” he told the media. “We will be a manufacturing nation again, and we will have something that no other manufacturing nation will ever have, the largest amount of oil and gas that any country on earth has, and we are going to use it.” He plans to realize this vision by “drastically cutting regulations, exploiting natural resources, cutting taxes, [and] scrapping efforts to tackle climate change,” Courthouse News reported. Such a…
Having seven free trade agreements (FTAs) with Europe and MENA nations and one conditional trade deal (Qualified Industrial Zones) with the United States makes Egypt an ideal country for the free flow of goods. Those FTAs and QIZ give Egypt “access to 1.5 billion consumers,“ according to the General Authority for Investment and Free Zones (GAFI) However, reaching those consumers is becoming more challenging due to a “backlash against globalized trade,” noted a paper from the World Politics Review, a specialized analysis platform, in February 2024. “Once hailed as a way to improve efficiency in developed economies and create prosperity…
For most people, becoming a business owner would be daunting, even for those with the correct disposition. “There are fewer entrepreneurs than there should be,” a World Economic Forum post noted. Ever-present risks include potentially selling unprofitable products or services, dealing with government bureaucracies, hiring and managing employees across technical and administrative functions, and forecasting the market. Artificial intelligence (AI), which ChatGPT commercialized in 2022, could tackle most of those “risks” for reluctant entrepreneurs. “The omnipresence of AI in contemporary entrepreneurial practices has redefined the essence of business operations, strategy formulation, and decision-making,” Imtiaz Mostafiz, an associate professor of strategy…
For youth (Gen Z, born from 1997 to 2012), working for others is not appealing. “It is abundantly clear … Gen Z is driven by a strong entrepreneurial spirit, with 50% [of survey respondents] expressing their desire to become entrepreneurs or start their own businesses,” a 2023 report from Samsung and Morning Consult noted. “This unwavering focus on entrepreneurship underscores Gen Z’s innovative mindset, their drive for autonomy and their eagerness to forge unique paths in the ever-evolving landscape of the future of work.” In Egypt, Gen Z accounted for 28.5% of the population in 2023, according to data aggregator…
With over 63% of Egypt’s population under 30 years old in 2023 and growing 1.57% annually, the country is a startup hotbed. “The government recognizes the importance of … entrepreneurship … given Egypt’s youthful population,” said Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly at a November press event. He plans to boost investments “from $500 million to $5 billion.” However, he offered no timeline for achieving that tenfold increase. To realize such a goal, the government has to be more effective at overcoming factors that cause startups to fail. “While the Egyptian market has grown into a healthier environment for startups by the…
Building a curious and innovative mind almost always starts with playing with toys during early childhood. “Through play, children learn to persist, interact, engage, invent, and act out their ideas and share them,” said the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). “Play affirms and stimulates children’s creativity and nurtures the ‘thinking outside the box’ approach that children will use to contribute their own ideas to the world.” In Egypt, toy manufacturing has long suffered government negligence and mounting challenges. However, a devalued pound and tight import restrictions are significantly increasing the prices of imported variants, giving local…
As benchmarks go, few match “1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.” In 2015, the UN said that is the limit above which climate damage would be permanent. “1.5 degrees is not a target, it is not a goal, it is a physical limit,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres wrote in June. In November, nearly 200 countries met in Azerbaijan for another U.N.-led Conference of the Parties (COP29) to discuss ways to keep that benchmark within reach. “The battle to keep global warming within 1.5 degrees Celsius has been a rallying cry for climate action for nearly a decade,” Zahra Hirji, climate…
The link between industry and sustained economic growth goes back to the First Industrial Revolution in the 1780s. “Industry has always been a cornerstone of economic prosperity [and] a key driver of productivity and innovation,” a paper from the EU Commission said. Throughout 2024, the Egyptian government talked up the importance of industrial development to revive the country’s economy. “The state [is] keen on exerting all efforts to stimulate the various industrial sectors with the view of localizing industries, particularly in developing specialized technological industries,” Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said at a December press event. According to government officials, the…
To manage my family-of-four household budget amid soaring prices, we started buying our essentials from three supermarkets within 5 kilometers of each other. The reason is that their deli, bakery, fresh produce, and meat prices vary significantly despite targeting more or less the same consumers. According to the government, monthly annualized inflation rates have stayed above 25% since January 2023. On the ground, households are paying even more. “Prices in the market are always higher than official numbers,” Nihal El Kousi, NielsonIQ managing director for North Africa and the Levant, said during a November AmCham Egypt event. “What we bought…