New Central Bank Regulation to hit local money markets    Forex auctions carry on    VIDEO: First-half controversy sees Zamalek through in cup    Cairo governorate launches ‘Cairo 2030' conference    TV presenters investigated for Tamarod support    NSF addresses Sinai crisis    US report on status of religious freedom in Egypt    IMF: Inflation in Egypt expected to rise by 10.9% this year    Poverty on the rise amid increasing unemployment and inflation: ECESR    Patterson: Army rule inconsistent with democracy    Egyptian army ready to move to free kidnapped soldiers: Sources    HRW: Little regard for freedom of speech in the Arab World    Beautiful aquatic ‘soft killer'    Egypt Gold Prices Soar, 21-Carat Hits EGP 284.89    Vodafone To Keep Verizon Payout Amid Europe Struggles    Upbeat    A Spanish touch of Paradise    Palestinian film of love and betrayal breaks new ground at Cannes    Beyond marriage of disparity    Roadside bomb kills 6 policemen in Afghanistan    Qatar's Doha Bank may sell bonds to raise capital: CEO    Mourinho's exit puts Real Madrid president under scrutiny    Trial of protester accused of storming Morsi palace with a crane begins    Investigations into food poisoning scare at Al-Azhar Univ.    KSA executes, crucifies 5 Yemenis for murder    US Names Envoy To Combat Anti-Semitism, Warns Of Rising Incidents    5 killed in Iraq bombings    Who rules in Sinai?    Annotated 'Harry Potter' 1st edition on auction    Khaled Hosseini's new book is another tear-jerker: AP review    January Revolution unleashes hunt for October War heroes    Oil Futures Seesaw; U.S. Inventories May Decline    New Ahli deal for Abdul-Fadil    Former Egypt striker added to Ahli staff    Ferguson heads into retirement with manager of year title    Egypt Presidency Vows 'Decisive' Response To Sinai Kidnappings    European shares slip from five-year highs    Sinai Residents Clash With Police At Protest Over Security Vacuum    Oklahoma tornado death toll rises    Israel fires back at Syria after gunshots at its troops    Jose Mourinho in memorable quotes    Antiquities minister: UNESCO threatens to declassify heritage sites    Morsi: NGOs Law To Be Discussed With Different Parties Before Its Approval    Two Egyptian Journalists, Critical Of Morsi, Face Trial    Eurovision Song Contest Won By Denmark    U.S. 'Idol' Winner Shines Light On South's Gullah Culture    David Beckham is to retire from football    Emma Watson wows in glitz gown at Cannes    

Articles of the author Niveen Wahish
Banking on Egypt
Andrew Long is group general manager and CEO of HSBC Bank Egypt SAE. He was appointed CEO after the 2011 revolution — a critical juncture for Egypt's economy. With 35 years of banking experience, Long tells Al-Ahram Weekly how his bank's operations have been faring since the revolution and how the (...)

15 - 05 - 2013
Down the drain?
There was a time when high-ranking Egyptian officials would travel east and west seeking investment. That way of operating seems to have taken a back seat, for now at least. Now they go east and west in pursuit of financing. This week these high-ranking officials fly to Washington for the (...)

16 - 04 - 2013
MENA unemployment deconstructed
The Middle East and North Africa region (MENA) has been growing at five per cent and suffering from unemployment of above 10 per cent in recent years, says Caroline Freund, World Bank chief economist for the MENA region, emphasising that this unemployment is largely due to insufficient growth. (...)

09 - 04 - 2013
Darker days ahead?
Emergency rechargeable lamps are selling like hot cakes as the public prepares for yet more power cuts. As hard currency reserves plummet, the government is finding it increasingly difficult to keep power stations supplied with the fuel they need. Since January 2011 Egypt has seen its foreign (...)

03 - 04 - 2013
Dreaming big?
Public Private Partnerships (PPP) is the new government buzzword these days, one of the schemes that the government plans to use in order to build much-needed infrastructure projects in Egypt. Plans are already afoot to put up for tender between eight and 10 infrastructure projects with a total (...)

27 - 03 - 2013
IMF negotiations continue
Egypt received yet another visit by the Director of the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) Middle East and Central Asia Department Masood Ahmed this week, though government spokesman Alaa Al-Hadidi said on Monday that the talks had not led to any specific agreement even if they had paved the way (...)

19 - 03 - 2013
Islamists untangled
Samer Shehata is assistant professor of Arab politics at the Centre for Contemporary Arab Studies in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. His research interests include Middle Eastern politics, Islamist politics and elections under authoritarianism. He talked to (...)

13 - 03 - 2013
From theory to practice
Mustapha Nabli served in the sensitive position of Central Bank of Tunisia governor for 18 months following the ousting of former Tunisian president Zein Al-Abidine bin Ali in 2011. Prior to his Central Bank position, Nabli was regional chief economist in the World Bank's Middle East and North (...)

12 - 03 - 2013
Short on assistance
Egypt is set to receive $190 million in budget support from the US, the first instalment of a $450 million grant that the US had promised the country to be used for balance of payments support. The money had been blocked in the US Congress, where some members had called for a re-evaluation of (...)

12 - 03 - 2013
Getting it together?
There is only one thing that everyone seems to agree on in Egypt and Tunisia nowadays: the serious deterioration in the two countries' economies. Many are blaming this on the Islamist parties that took power in the wake of the Arab Spring revolutions, though others claim it is still too early to (...)

05 - 03 - 2013
Street sport hits Cairo
It is six in the morning on Friday. The weekend, and no real need to get up. So why are hundreds of Cairenes setting their alarm clocks to wake them when it is barely light? They are the committed Cairo Runners and they are about to join up for their weekly run. By 7am sharp, people from all over (...)

27 - 02 - 2013
Not plain sailing
Almost two weeks of civil disobedience in Egypt's Suez Canal governorates have been taking their toll on the neighbouring ports, with the East Port Said Container Terminal being among the hardest hit. A statement by the Suez Canal Container Terminal (SCCT) last week said that workers had been (...)

26 - 02 - 2013
Advice on development
David M. Malone has been president of Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC) for almost five years. Next month he moves on to become rector of the United Nations University in Tokyo. During a recent two-day visit to Cairo he spoke about some of the challenges facing Egypt and (...)

20 - 02 - 2013
Heading south?
Not a day now passes without news indicating the deterioration of the economy, with depleting reserves, a depreciating currency, fuel shortages and higher inflation being only some of the recent headlines. January headline inflation figures saw the biggest increase in two years, according to (...)

12 - 02 - 2013
On a tight rope
For around a year now, the Central Bank of Egypt's (CBE) Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) has kept the Bank's overnight lending rate at 10.25 per cent, the overnight deposit rate at 9.25 per cent, and the discount rate at 9.5 per cent. The CBE, which targets price stability, said in a press release (...)

05 - 02 - 2013
Safely tucked away?
“Where is all the money they told us about,” asks Umm Mohamed, referring to the fortunes she has heard members of the former Mubarak regime had stashed away in foreign banks. Rumours put such fortunes at billions of dollars. “If we had that money, we would not be begging for foreign assistance from (...)

30 - 01 - 2013
Getting a head start
Some investors may believe this is not the right time to invest in Egypt and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region given the lack of political stability following the Arab Spring revolutions. Others look at it differently. According to Hisham Fahmy, executive director of the American (...)

15 - 01 - 2013
Telling it like it is
“The nature of the crisis compels us to accept the loan from the International Monetary Fund.” This is not a quotation from a liberal economist, but rather comes from famous Egyptian economist Galal Amin, who is known for his socialist leanings. It may be an indication of how bad the country's (...)

09 - 01 - 2013
Running short on gas
After years of being told that the country's natural gas reserves are almost bottomless, Egyptians have now woken up to government plans to issue a tender to import gas in just a few weeks. “They were lying to us,” Amr Kamal Hammouda, an energy consultant and manager of the Al-Fustat Centre for (...)

01 - 01 - 2013
Reconcile or bust
It never rains but it pours. This week the economy has been plagued with one piece of bad news after another. It is as if, following the completion of the referendum, officials have suddenly woken up to the gravity of the economic problems Egypt is facing. That, or they now feel able to come clean (...)

27 - 12 - 2012
Clutching the last straw
Were Egypt's economy in good shape the news that the governor of the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE), Farouk Al-Okda, could be resigning may have passed unnoticed. But with deterioration across the board, the governor seemed like the last thread from which the economy was hanging. While the governor (...)

25 - 12 - 2012
Lost in transition
Almost two years ago, the night Hosni Mubarak was ousted, people took the streets with nothing but joy and hope filling their hearts. Young men were spontaneously singing, “I will get married.” They thought that finally they would be able to get a job, find an apartment and afford to get married. (...)

19 - 12 - 2012
Supporting job creation
The Social Fund for Development (SFD) has been around for 20 years. It was originally created to mitigate the effects of economic restructuring and structural adjustment, to provide a social safety net to help create jobs and employment for returnees from the Gulf War, to help create jobs for those (...)

12 - 12 - 2012
Ingrained corruption
International Anti-Corruption Day is marked on 9 December, yet Egypt does not have much to show for itself this year. Soon after the 25 January Revolution, everybody thought things would change: no more bribes to facilitate one's business or get oneself off the hook from a traffic ticket. In fact, (...)

05 - 12 - 2012
Subtle moves
Someone tweeted this week that there could not be a better time to increase 95-octane gasoline prices. With all the political squabbling, nobody would notice. In fact, this is exactly what happened. The government on Sunday night implemented a decision it had been delaying for weeks, if not months. (...)

28 - 11 - 2012
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