Egypt: Closer Than You Think

• In its Doing Business 2009 report, the World Bank named Egypt the top reformer in the Middle East and one of the 10 top global reformers.

• Egypt was noted for its reforms in the business start-up arena, which include streamlining the construction permit and property registration processes, protecting investors and accessing credit.

• 2008 was the third year in a row that Egypt was named the top reformer in the Middle East.

Source: World Bank Doing Business 2009

• Current reserves of gas in Egypt are expected to last for the next 35 years.
• The Egyptian government is fostering new oil and gas discoveries, selling licenses for exploration in the 12 areas in the Red Sea, Gulf of Suez and the Eastern and Western deserts.

Source: Oxford Business Group Report

• Growth has been broad-based across manufacturing, the hydrocarbon sector, construction, services, tourism and agriculture, with the main drivers being private consumption and investment supported by relatively large inflows of Foreign Direct Investment.
• At least 11 major state-owned companies across various sectors have been privatized since 2004.
• In 2005, the Egyptian government cut corporate tax rates in half, from 40 percent of profits to 20 percent. Personal tax rates were reduced at the same time, moving from a flat rate to a progressive system.
• Unemployment in Egypt has fallen from 11.8 percent in 2005 to 8.6 percent in 2008.

Source: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development; Egyptian Ministry of Investment

• In June, Egypt sent 40 doctors to the western Sudan region to fill the gap which was the result of the expulsion of 13 aid groups working there.
• Egypt has a field hospital in Al-Fasher in Northern Darfur and has proposed to build another.
• Egypt's efforts to bring different Sudanese parties to the negotiating table to reach a comprehensive and durable solution to the Darfur crisis contributed in achieving the Darfur Peace Agreement.
• Egypt hosted a fresh round of mediation talks between the United Nations and the African Union on Darfur in December 2007 in Sharm el-Sheikh.

Source: Egypt Ministry of Foreign Affairs; BBC

• The first trains started running nearly 20 years ago, and the system has been gradually expanded. Today, the two subway lines carry 2.5 to three million people every day.
• The system now has 53 stations and over 65 kilometers of track.

Source: Voice of America News

• On June 4, 2009, al-Azhar co-hosted U.S. President Barak Obama's visit to Cairo and his speech to the Muslim world.
• Though historically a theological seminary for Islamic thought, medicine and engineering schools were established at al-Azhar in 1961.
• In 2007, the Imam of al-Azhar declared terrorists and suicide bombers to be "heretics" and accused them of deviating from the true path of Islam.
• Studies began at Al-Azhar in the month of Ramadan, 975 AD.

Source: Al-Azhar University Information

• More than half of Egypt's projected renewable energy supply in 2020 would come from wind energy, with significant investments in solar and hydroelectric power.
• A new $30 million center of renewable energy has opened in Nasser City, providing expertise to businesses and governments throughout the Middle East and North Africa.

Source: Oxford Business Group Report 2009

• Egypt has been supporting operations in Afghanistan by treating more than 7,200 Afghan patients every month at the Egyptian Field Hospital at Bagram Air Field.
• Egypt's Army and Air Force deploy members to the hospital every six months to treat patients.
• Children make up 31 percent of the hospital's patients, all of whom are treated for free.

Source: U.S. - Egypt Combined Joint Task Force

• Built in the early 20th century, the Aswan High Dam controls the Nile River's flooding cycles, allowing permanent settlements to be built in the Nile Valley and tripling the number of crops farmers can harvest.
• Today, the Aswan High Dam provides Egypt with 15 percent of its energy supply every year.

Source: www.outreachworld.org

• Located on the site of the historic eastern harbor of Alexandria, almost exactly where the old library and the royal palace of the Ptolemies once stood, the complex comprises three main elements: the pre-existing conference center, the planetarium and the new building.
• The New Bibliotheca Alexandrina is dedicated to recapture the spirit of openness and scholarship of the original Bibliotheca Alexandrina.
• The New Bibliotheca Alexandrina and the Library of Congress worked together to develop a world digital library.

Source: www.bibalex.org

• Former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was the country's first Nobel laureate, after being awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace for his landmark peace agreement between Egypt and Israel at Camp David in 1978.
• Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz became the only Arabic-language writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1988.
• CalTech Professor Ahmed H. Zewail, won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1999 for how atoms in a molecule move during a chemical reaction.
• Mohamed El-Baradei, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005 for his efforts to promote, safe, peaceful use of nuclear energy.

Source: The Nobel Foundation

• Egypt is one of five African Union member countries who have pledged to pay the maximum member rate of 15 percent of the entire AU budget.
• At the suggestion of Egypt, the twelfth African Union summit in Addis Ababa focused on the topic of infrastructure and development.
• During the twelfth summit, the African Union welcomed Egypt's offer of 500 scholarships for students from other African nations in different industries as well as the launching of the South-South Industrial Cooperation Centre

Source: AU 12th Summit Executive Council Decisions and Declarations; Southern African Regional Poverty Network

• Egypt is a major regional media player and its press is one of the most influential and widely-read in the region." - BBC World Reports
• Over half of Egypt's newspapers are privately owned, including 17 newspapers published by churches and Christian groups.
• Opposition parties may form their own newspapers, and in recent years the Shura Council has granted licenses to the Ghad and Karama parties to publish weekly newspapers.

Source: Freedom House country reports

• The Arab Gas Pipeline exports Egyptian natural gas to the Middle East with planned expansions into Europe. When completed, it will have a total length of 1,200 kilometres (750 mi) at a cost of US$1.2 billion.
• The agreement regarding Iraq, was signed in 2004 by the governments of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.

Source: The Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development.

• Egyptian mediators have recently stepped up pressure to form a unity government by setting a deadline to bridge divisions, preparing the ground for a gradual restoration of unity and allowing for the holding of presidential and parliamentary elections in 2010.
• Egypt's role in ending the recent conflict in the Gaza Strip was instrumental, taking the lead with a proposal for an - immediate ceasefire by Israel and all Palestinian factions and allowing humanitarian aid to reach civilians. Key to the ceasefire agreement was Egypt's accelerated efforts to end illegal smuggling across its border with Gaza.
• Early in 2009, Egypt spearheaded an international effort to fund and lead reconstruction efforts in Gaza that garnered over $5 billion in pledged funds.

Source: Reuters (06/09/09); Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 5/25/09; Haaretz, 02/03/09

• Egypt has 20 Qualifying Industrial Zones; free trade areas where goods manufactured with a designated percentage of Israeli materials can enter the U.S. without tariff or quota restrictions.
• Egypt is one of only two Middle Eastern countries to have set up QIZs.
• The number of QIZs in Egypt has doubled in the past four years.
• The U.S. - Egypt Plan for a Strategic Partnership, signed in 2009, will expand the QIZ program.

Source: Reuters; Egyptian QIZ Office

• Operation Bright Star is a joint military training exercise, between the U.S., Egypt and a number of other countries, conducted at Cairo West Air Base every two years.
• The next Bright Star Exercise will be held in the fall of 2009. The goal of the project is to strengthen bonds between the countries’ militaries and better maintain regional stability.
• "...whatever our differences might be, [Egypt is a] very critical partner in a very critical part of the world. That’s 30 years later at a really critical time." - Admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
• "Our own military has benefited from the interaction with the Egyptian armed forces, one of the most professional and capable in the region." - Defense Secretary Robert Gates

Source: www.globalsecurity.org; Testimony before Senate Foreign Relations Committee; Department of Defense

• In 2003, the first woman was appointed to Egypt’s Supreme Constitutional Court.
• Nearly 30 percent of ministers, senior officials and managers in the public administration and defense establishment in Egypt are women.
• A new law adopted in June allocates a quote of 64, or 12 percent, of the seats in the lower house of parliament to women.

Source: NDP Strategic Pillars 2007; ILO labor Force Survey 2006; AFP (06/14/09)

• Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak introduced a constitutional amendment allowing direct elections for the office of President of the Republic.
• Parliament can now amend earmarks and other public funding.

• New rules were instated to encourage more political competition in Egyptian elections. Political parties may now nominate candidates for Presidential office as long as they have 3 percent representation in Parliament. Any political party can put forward a candidate with just one seat in the legislature for a period of 10 years. 

Source: NDP Strategic Pillars 2007
 

• Egypt has an estimated 162,000 bloggers, most of whom are between the ages of 20 and 30.
• Egypt’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology launched the Free Internet Initiative in 2002 offering free internet services to all users across the country.
• Thanks in large part to government efforts to promote internet use, the number of Egyptians with access to the internet has more than quadrupled over the past several years, and an estimated 10 percent of the population used the internet in 2007. 
  
  Source: Blog Herald; Freedom House country reports; UNHCR
   

• Egypt is currently participating in 11 peacekeeping missions around the world.
• In total, Egypt participated in 23 peacekeeping missions in Africa, from Congo in 1961 to the current and ongoing UN African Mission in Darfur.
• As an active member of the African Union, Egypt participates in regional efforts to bring about peace and stability in many regions and political settlements to many disputes in Africa.
• Egypt's efforts include deployment to Sudan where it has established one field hospital in El Fasher in Northern Darfur and has proposed to build another. Egypt has also tried to bring different Sudanese parties to the negotiating table to reach a comprehensive and sustainable solution to the Darfur crisis. This resulted in the Darfur Peace Agreement, signed between the Sudanese Government and the Sudan Liberation Movement in May 2006.

Source: Woodrow Wilson Information Center; UN Mission's Contributions by Country; Egyptian Embassy

• Amal Suleiman, a lawyer and mother of three, was appointed as a “Maazoun,” or Islamic marriage officer, in October 2008. She holds law and criminal justice degrees as well as a master's degree in Islamic Law.
• Egypt’s Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa issued a religious edict at the time declaring that there are no restrictions in Islam on women acting as marriage registrars, stating that “women are allowed to conduct any form of financial, commercial or familial contract, including marriage.”

Source: NPR; al-Ahram Weekly
 

• In June 2009, Egypt passed a law allocating a quota of 12.5 percent (64) seats in the People’s Assembly, the lower house of Parliament, to women for upcoming elections in 2010 and 2015. In comparison, women make up 17.5 percent of the U.S. House of Representatives.
• In order to further encourage women’s participation in political life, the National Council for Women created the Center for the Political Empowerment of Women in 2003, an ambitious program that aims to develop women’s skills to run for parliamentary elections and make the voices of female Egyptian MPs heard.
• More than 25 percent of top management positions in the civil service are currently held by women.
  
  Source: Government Performance Report; The National Council For Women

• The Coptic Orthodox Church was founded in Alexandria by the apostle Mark in AD 57, making it one of the oldest churches in the world. 
• A law requiring Presidential approval for church construction was changed in 2005, transferring that duty instead to the country’s governors who are obligated to process churches’ requests within 30 days. 
• In 2003, President Mubarak declared Coptic Christmas, celebrated on January 7, a national holiday.

Source: CAPMAS Social Indicators; World Wide Religious News; BBC News

The Egyptian government’s commitment to promoting educational opportunities for girls as a primary route to gender equality is producing results:

• There are now more girls than boys in secondary education.
• The gap in primary education is almost completely bridged, and is on track to be eliminated by 2014. 
• The literacy rate for female youths rose from 67 percent in 1990 to 81 percent in 2005, and is expected to be more than 95 percent in 2015.

Source: Egypt Human Development Report 2008, p.39

• Foreign direct investment (FDI) saw a 26-fold increase from $500 million in 2000/01 to $13.2 billion in 2007/08. 
• As a percent of GDP, net FDI increased less than 1 percent in fiscal year 2000/01 to more than 8 percent in fiscal year 2007/08. 
• In its bid to attract more FDI, Egypt became the first Arab country to sign the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Declaration on International Investment and Multinational Enterprises in 2007.

Source: AMCHAM Egypt; Ministry of Investment FY 2007/2008 Performance Report, Ministry of Investment, Egypt Investment Portal, OECD; UNCTAD World Investment Report 2008; Government Performance Report 2004-2009, IDSC

• The Global Hunger Index (GHI), which calculates worldwide hunger and malnutrition rates, estimates that between 1990 and 2008, Egypt’s GHI vulnerability decreased by more than 50 percent, despite rising food prices in the country.
• Only six out of 70 countries included in the study have achieved this feat.

Source: International Food Policy Research Institute
 

• The Union for the Mediterranean began in 2008 as a way for EU members and their non-EU neighbors across the Mediterranean Sea to work together. Its main objectives are to promote peace, fight pollution in the Mediterranean, increase solar energy use, build land and sea highways and cooperate on higher education and research. 
• The Union joins EU members with several non-EU countries that border the Mediterranean Sea. The headquarters of the Union for the Mediterranean are located in Barcelona, Spain.
  
  Source: European Commission

• In Fiscal Year 2008, bilateral trade between Egypt and the U.S. was close to $7 billion, more than 350 percent higher than its 2004 levels.
• Egypt is the fourth largest export market for the U.S. in the Middle East and North Africa, representing nearly 9 percent of its exports to the region.
• In May 2009, the U.S. and Egypt signed a plan for a strategic partnership, which aims to further promote economic cooperation between the two countries.
• Since 2002/03, private U.S. direct investment has increased from $277.5 million to more than $6 billion in 2007/08, a 23-fold increase.
  
  Source: Ministry of Trade and Industry; Office of the U.S. Trade Representative

• The three year, $10 million agreement seeks to promote Egyptian industries worldwide via Google's advertising platforms on the web.
• When signing the agreement with Google in June 2009, Egyptian Minister of Communications and Information Technology Tarek Kamel said, “the barrier now with computers and PCs is the lack of Arabic content online on the net, and this is one of the areas we need to invest in the future, and we are inviting investors to come in and make our national heritage and cultural heritage online and make it available not only to the neighboring countries in the Arab world, but to the 350 million members of the Arabic-speaking population worldwide, whether in the U.S. or in Europe.”
• In November 2009, Egypt will host the international Internet Governance Forum (IGF), an international forum for multi-stakeholder policy dialogue concerning the development of the internet.

Source: Internet Governance Forum; The Washington Times
 

• The Ministry of Communication and Information Technology’s sector development policy was translated into a comprehensive unified law, the Telecommunication Act, which was ratified by parliament in 2003. The policy seeks to increase the competitiveness of the Egyptian telecommunications market by fostering competition for business growth and establishing an institutional framework with an independent regulatory function. 
• Currently, revenue from Egypt’s Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector is growing at 15 percent annually, reaching nearly $1.9 billion last year. 
• Nearly 3,000 ICT companies were operating in Egypt at the end of 2008, an increase of 25 percent from the previous year.
• In the fourth quarter of 2008, the ICT sector contributed to 4 percent of national GDP, up from 3.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2007.

Source: Ministry of Communication and Information Technology
 

• In an effort to make technology more affordable, Egypt's Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) launched the Free Internet Initiative in 2002, which provides free dial-up access to the internet for all Egyptians in partnership with private ISPs.
• Similarly, the PC For Every Home initiative — launched by MCIT and implemented by Telecom Egypt and 17 private sector computer manufacturers — offers affordable, internet-enabled family computer installments, with no collateral and no deposit required. To take advantage of this, families only require a fixed telephone line. The initiative will also help the growth of the local assembly industry. So far, more than 44,000 computers were purchased through the initiative.
• The number of internet users in Egypt increased from 8 million in 2004 to more than 12.5 million to 2008.

Source: Egypt Ministry of Communications and Information Technology; Information and Communications Technology Bulletin, March 2009

• The National Council for Human Rights was established in 2003 to support human rights reforms across Egypt and is run by former UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros Ghali. It offers an unvarnished look at internal reforms and developments, acknowledging the scrutiny that Egypt has received from international NGOs and human rights organizations.
• In 2008, the Council introduced major changes to its complaints department by introducing the use of mobile units to reach citizens and establishing a free hot line to receive citizens’ complaints.
• The Council issues an annual report on the state of Human Rights in the country, which is forwarded to the People’s Assembly for consideration.
• The 2008 report notes that the right to freedom of opinion and expression has reached an unprecedented high, especially with respect to media. Independent and opposition papers and controversial TV shows on Egyptian satellite have scrutinized and openly criticized government policies.

Source:National Council for Human Rights; Al-Ahram Weekly

• The Camp David Accords, held under the leadership of Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat and U.S. President Jimmy Carter, led to the Egypt-Israel peace treaty, signed in early 1979.
• President Sadat’s historic visit to Jerusalem in 1977, as well as his speech in front of the Israeli Knesset, paved the way for the successful peace process between Egypt and Israel.
• In his acceptance speech for the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize, President Sadat said “Let us put an end to wars; let us reshape life on the solid basis of equity and truth. And it is this call, which reflected the will of the Egyptian people, of the great majority of the Arab and Israeli peoples, and indeed of millions of men, women and children around the world.”
• Since the establishment of peace between Israel and Egypt, the two countries have developed trade relations in a number of realms, including textiles, machinery, chemicals, vegetables and cotton, with bilateral trade reaching over $114 million in 2008.

Source: Ministry of Trade and Industry
 

• Egypt’s capital, Cairo, is Africa’s and the Arab world’s largest cosmopolitan city.
• Cairo, with a population of 16 million people, is the 11th largest urban area in the world.
• The city of Cairo was founded in 968 A.D.
• In 2005, Cairo sent delegations to New York to participate in the Sister City Summit titled “Strategies for Public Art.”

• Tourism earnings grew from $4.3 billion in 2000/2001 to $10.8 billion in 2007/2008.
• The number of tourists visiting Egypt rose from 5.5 million in 2000 to 12.8 million in 2008.
• Egypt was rated the No. 1 price-competitive travel and tourism destination by the World Economic Forum in 2009.

• Egypt holds the record for most championships won at the bi-annual soccer tournament, with six titles.
• Egypt was one of the championship’s founders in 1957, the first year it won the title.
• Egypt and Ghana have been the most frequent hosts of the tournament, having hosted four times each.

Source: Confederation of African Football; BBC News
 

• The Egyptian Exchange experienced impressive growth in recent years. Its annual value of trades grew from $7.8 billion in 2004 to $67 billion in 2007.
• In 2007 and 2008, the Egyptian legislature introduced the Nile Stock Exchange, creating capital-raising opportunities for small and medium-sized businesses.
• At the same time, the existing Egyptian Stock Exchange saw the introduction of intraday trading.

Source: Oxford Business Group
 

• Egypt produces approximately 4.6 million tons of medium and short-grain rice a year.
• Rice is Egypt’s second most important export crop, after cotton.
• Egypt exported a record 1.2 million tons of rice to the United States in 2007.

Source: Oxford Business Group, USDA Rice Yearbook 2009

• The UN estimates that there are approximately 337 million Arabs worldwide.
• Egypt is the most populous Arab nation with 76.8 million residents; this is approximately double the population of Sudan, the second most populous Arab nation.
  
  Source: United Nations Population Fund
   

• Of the more than 4,000 short and feature-length films made in Arabic speaking countries since 1908, more than three-quarters were Egyptian. The number of feature-length films produced in Egypt more than doubled from 1997 to 2007.
• The Cairo International Film Festival was established in 1976 and has become one of the top festivals worldwide. It includes films from more than 50 countries in Africa, the Arab world and other parts of the world.
• In 2008, the Cairo International Film Festival celebrated the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with a section devoted to films about human rights.
  
  Source: Cairo Film Fest; Al-Ahram Weekly

• There were 176,400 employees in the Information and Communication Technology sector in Q1 2009, representing a year-over-year increase of more than 12,700 employees and an annual growth rate of almost 8 percent.
• Of the 16,000 students who graduate from Egyptian technical universities every year, more than a third speak two or three languages.
• In 2006, the Egyptian Education Initiative (EEI) was launched as a public-private partnership between the Egyptian government and the World Economic Forum in order to utilize IT as a driver for economic and innovative development in education. Since its launch, 70,000 PCs have been deployed and more than 200,000 training sessions have been delivered through the EEI.
  
  Source: Ministry of Communications and Information Technology; Egyptian Education Initiative
  
   

• Overall, women’s share of the labor force has risen dramatically from 9.5 percent in 1981 to 22.4 percent in 2008.
• In 2008, women made up 31 percent of government employees.
• Participation of women in managerial and decision-making positions in the civil service has increased from 23.7 percent in 2001 to 26.3 percent in 2008.
   

Source: IDSC; World Bank; Common Ground News Service
 

• According to African Business magazine, 33 of Africa’s top 200 companies are located in Egypt.
• Six Egyptian companies on the African Business list rank within the top 50 on the continent.
• The highest ranking Egyptian companies are in the telecommunications sector.
  
  Source: African Business
   

• Egypt’s recent growth-oriented economic reforms have shortened the process of starting a new business. By comparison, it takes 11 days to start a business in neighboring Tunisia, 12 in Morocco and 34 in Kuwait.
   
• Other areas of reform include streamlining construction permit procedures, easier property registration, easier access to credit, protecting investors and increased trading across borders.
   
• Egypt has been among the top 10 global business reformers three times in the past four years, and was ranked as the top regional reformer for the year 2008 by the World Bank’s Doing Business report.

Source: Outlook Business

• Government scientists in Egypt are working to protect the spectacular coral reefs in the Red Sea by raising public awareness and establishing marine and terrestrial protected areas.
• Red Sea Rangers, trained by the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency, patrol a substantial portion of the coral reefs.
   
• The Egyptian Tourism Development Authority is developing ecotourism and eco-lodging centers to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of tourists who visit Egypt’s coral reefs every year.
   
• The Red Sea reefs have hundreds of hard and soft coral species, marine mammals, reptiles, mangroves and species of fish.
   

Source: Economic Valuation of the Red Sea Coral Reef. Monitoring, Verification, and Evaluation (MVE) Unit of the Egyptian Environmental Policy Program, USAID

• The Arab League, or the League of Arab States, is one of the oldest regional organizations in the world and is headquartered in Cairo.
• It was formed in Cairo on March 22, 1945, with six members: Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Syria.
• The Arab League currently includes all 22 Arab states. Its main goals are to establish closer relations between member states, safeguard their independence and sovereignty and promote their interests.
• From 1979-1989, Egypt was expelled from the League of Arab States in response to the late President Sadat’s historic visit and peace treaty with Israel. During that time, the League's headquarters was moved to Tunisia. Egypt re-joined the Arab League in 1989 under President Mubarak’s leadership, and its headquarters was moved back to Cairo.
• Every Secretary-General of the Arab League, with the exception of the period between 1979 and 1991, has been an Egyptian. Amr Moussa is the current Secretary-General of the League of Arab States since his election to the position in May 2001. He is a former Egyptian Foreign Minister and diplomat.

Source:  Arab League

• Nilesat 101, a geosynchronous communications satellite and the first satellite to be owned by an Arab country, was launched by an Ariane 4 rocket from Kourou, French Guyana on April 28, 1998.

• Nilesats 102 and 103 were launched in 2000 and 2005, respectively, and Nilesat 201 is planned to launch in 2010.

• The Nilesat Company now broadcasts more than 450 digital TV channels, including English speaking channels such as BBC World News, CNN International, Bloomberg TV and the Discovery Channel.

Source:  BBC News July 2009 and Nilesat

• AmCham Egypt was founded in 1982 as the 44th American Chamber of Commerce to be established abroad and the first in the Middle East.
• Today it is one of the largest and most active overseas affiliates of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and has successfully helped in enhancing economic and investment ties between the United States and Egypt.
• The AmCham serves as a forum for which American business executives in Egypt and Egyptian business executives with American interests may identify, discuss, and pursue common interests regarding their activities.
• U.S.-Egyptian commercial and trade relations are on the rise, with bilateral trade reaching $8.4 billion in 2008, up from $6.3 billion in 2006 – a 33 percent increase.
  
  Source: American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt; Peterson Institute for International Economics