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…
Author: Tamer Hafez
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…
For decades, emerging economies, in particular, have subscribed to the idea that making the rich richer will trickle wealth to the lower classes. “Elected officials fall back on it because they can understand the simplistic logic of cutting taxes and regulations to provide incentives to workers, businesses, and investors to be more productive,” David Madland, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, wrote in Democracy, a Journal for Ideas. However,, IMF calculations show “trickle-down” economics do not benefit GDP growth in the long term. “Making the rich richer by one percentage point lowers GDP growth in a country…
Egypt’s finances have been in the spotlight since the first major floating of the pound in late 2016 in exchange for a $12 billion extended fund facility from the IMF. The country has seen little reprieve since, as geopolitical fallout in Ukraine and the Middle East, and Red Sea freight disruptions increasingly pressure national finances. In 2023, the government received significant support from abroad. According to Masaaki Yoshimori, an economist and professor at Georgetown University, the “IMF, EU and GCC countries [pledged] over $50 billion in financial commitments in 2023 alone, [allowing] Egypt to implement short-term critical measures,” he wrote…
Since its commercialization in 2022 with the launch of ChatGPT, artificial intelligence (AI) has become increasingly important for helping companies stay ahead of the competition. “AI has taken the world by storm, promising data-driven insights and automated solutions to elevate marketing strategies and reach target audiences like never before,” the Ronin Marketing agency said in a July blog post. “From chatbots providing instant customer support to predictive analytics optimizing ad placements, AI is seamlessly integrated into many marketing activities.” For all those benefits, the Forbes Communications Council, a committee of marketing, PR, and communication experts, stressed, “Businesses must … consider…
Aged 14 and younger, Generation Alpha (Gen Alpha or Alphas) numbers “almost 2 billion people globally,” Lucy Maber, a senior strategy consultant at Brandpie, a consultancy, wrote in Fast Company, a publication. “This is the largest cohort in history.” In Egypt, Gen Alfa is a third of the population, according to data aggregator Statistica. By 2030, those youth will become employees who likely will upend the business landscape. “They’re set to disrupt culture, the economy and our workplaces,” said Maber. “As brands, educators and policymakers look forward, understanding [Gen Alpha’s] nuances [versus their predecessors] will be key to unlocking the…
Against expectations of a closely fought US presidential race, Republican President-elect Donald Trump has won the 2024 presidential election and will lead the executive branch of government for four more years. For the next two years, Republicans will have a clear majority in America’s legislative branch (Senate and House of Representatives), meaning almost all legislation Trump wants will likely pass. The election results raise concerns about the US economy. “We are in the soft landing [during the current administration],” Nobel Prize-winning economist and Columbia University professor Joseph Stiglitz said at Yahoo Finance’s annual November Invest conference. “That ends Jan. 20,”…
As millions of Egyptian youth graduate from schools and universities every year, a top priority for most is finding a fulfilling career. “When considering … your next job, it proves beneficial to inquire, ‘Which industries are experiencing the most rapid growth?’” said Fatima Gulzar, a data analyst and reporter for Yahoo Finance. A note from the US Chamber of Commerce (USCC) said, “In 2025 and beyond … consumer trends, technological innovations, and macro-level global events like climate change can all indicate the types of businesses that will be in demand.” In addition to offering fulfilling career options, “booming industries stimulate…