Talk:Economy of Egypt

Cleanup
This article needs so much cleanup. I will do my best to clean, revise and update as my time allows. I did some improvements in the structure of it but I think other contributors shoud also have their coments and suggestions.

.Abdel_Hameed_Nawar 9:04, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, you guys totally copied from the CIA world factbook. That's bogus.

The overview sounds a bit POV. Tuf-Kat BLAHHHHHH!
 * I'm very suspicious of the IMF in general, but barring a concise and convincing (and attributable) counter-argument, I didn't want to go mucking about in the articles. Koyaanis Qatsi 06:42 28 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Shouldn't the type of economy be listed in the article too? There is more than one type of capitalism.--Blackmage337 22:32, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Nonsense
The article should be re-worked to bring it back to earth. At present, it gives the impression that Egypt is the largest economy "in the region". The reality is quite different. During 2000-5, Egyptian economy shrank from 50% to 25% that of Turkey and the Egyptian equity market in 2005 was comparable in size to Kuwait, not Saudi Arabia.Anwar 14:52, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Prograk On Radio 4
There was a good program on BBC Radio 4 yesterday about Cairo, should be available on Listen Again. We could get some bits and pieces from that maybe.

I lived there for a couple of years, I don't think it would be "cheating" to take facts from there, we could quote sources then.

SimonTrew (talk) 06:06, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Block quote

Government Budget Revenues
The revenue lists tax and grant revenue. Where is the revenue from the Suez Canal? This is not "taxes" and it is not "grants." It was 5.38 bil US dollars in 2008, so it would be a sizable part of the budget revenues (approx 7%). I was told that the government gets this income directly. Am I misinformed? Does a private company get the revenue and pay taxes on it? This would be an important thing to know in terms of understanding the financial picture for Egypt in general and the government in particular.

As a curious person, I would also like to know what part of taxes come from: oil & gas industry, tourism, agricultural exports, and non-corporate taxes. I wonder how much the government receives from fees: Suez Canal fees, custom fees, fees from the oil and gas industry, infringement of pollution law, public services, etc.

On a related note. Does the money collected for customs and other government fees income actually get recorded in government accounts or does it just go into the pockets of officials? When I have sent packages to Egypt, they charge about 50% of the value of the goods for customs-related fees. I wonder how much of this makes it into the recorded government revenues. Mostly people avoid this by sending packages via people who travel. But I wonder. I wonder, with so many people living abroad that the 3rd or 4th biggest source of revenue for Egypt is people working outside of Egypt whether this can be avoided entirely.

There are also duties on automobiles and other products which seem to belong in a separate line item from taxes or grants.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Sallyshabaka 18:28, 8 May 2010 (UTC)sally@placeofunderstanding.us 72.74.241.10 (talk) 18:28, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Statistics
The statistics for Electricity Generation are either wrong or wrongly labeled. It says Electricity Generation in GWh, but the numbers look approximately like the installed generation capacity in GW. The electricity generation in Egypt is around 120TWh (so about 120,000 GWh) 86.134.29.221 (talk) 13:33, 31 October 2010 (UTC) oh no i hate cheese lol — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.187.9.12 (talk) 00:41, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Agriculture
I am curious why there is no section about the agriculture of Egypt. Egypt is one of the oldest country in the world with agricultural activity, however it seems can't feed its own population by now, and might need to import even more food from overseas. These are interesting topics, deserve a single page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Prinscky (talk • contribs) 07:55, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Who wrote, and why are large sections of the Natural Resources section without citation? Particularly the "Land, agriculture and crops" section? I'm not knowledgeable about the subject either way, just found it odd considering Wikipedia's standards.StevenPine (talk) 10:26, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

2006 Wheat Stats Look Fake
it says "In 2006, areas planted with wheat in Egypt exceeded 400,000 acres (1,600 km2) producing approximately 6 million metric tons." So, first of all, the acreage is not mentioned in that article. Second, if this acreage is correct, the wheat productivity per hectare would be 37.5 tons, which is impossible. Maybe the acreage is actually 400,000 hectares, in which case yield would be more credible 15 tons per hectare (still a lot though). 76.119.30.87 (talk) 04:28, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Wheat Market
This RDI report describes the distortions in the wheat market in 1998; I'm wondering if the system is the same today. -- Beland (talk) 00:52, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm seeing reports elsewhere that the military took over the subsidized bread baking and distribution industry in April, 2008. -- Beland (talk) 00:56, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Repeated 'Religion'-Bashing
So, quickly looking through the article to make improvements in language, I twice find that someone has added 'religion' as a cause for poverty, and instead of entering an edit war with someone as mindless as that, I decided to make the issues with the article clear to the reader before he starts to treat the article with any level of seriousness. Linguistic problems remain, but more serious is the bias so well demonstrated by excerpts like 'Most employees wish to turn the office into a mosque and discuss bigotry all day.' It would be nice for Wikipedia to turn into a reliable source one day, but it doesn't seem possible under the current system where any edit goes straight through till some poor soul finds vandalism and reverts it.--عبد المؤمن (talk) 01:21, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Questionable Unemployment Rate
Samer Atallah, an economist at the American University in Cairo, explains; "The majority of the unemployed are the people that are in the age bracket of 15 to 29. That's nearly three quarters of the unemployed."

Egypt's official statistics agency says unemployment is now at 13%, but few take that figure seriously.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22687407 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.84.68.252 (talk) 02:11, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Economy of Egypt and the environment
Can someone have a look at this orphaned article and maybe incorporate it here or de-orphan it? Thanks Gbawden (talk) 11:15, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

External link to tariff data
Hello everyone, I am working for the International Trade Centre (ITC), a UN/WTO agency that aims to promote sustainable economic development through trade promotion. I would like to propose the addition of an external link (http://www.macmap.org/QuickSearch/FindTariff/FindTariff.aspx?subsite=open_access&country=SCC818%7cEgypt&source=1|ITC) that leads directly to our online database of customs tariffs applied by Egypt. Visitors can easily look up market access information for Egypt by selecting the product and partner of their interest. I would like you to consider this link under the WP:ELYES #3 prescriptions. Moreover, the reliability and the pertinence of this link can be supported by the following facts 1) ITC is part of the United Nations, and aims to share trade and market access data on by country and product as a global public good 2) No registration is required to access this information 3) Market access data (Tariffs and non-tariff measures) are regularly updated

Thank you, Divoc (talk) 09:56, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Flotation of the Egyptian Pound - Big NEWS which should be incorporated into this article

 * CAPMAS issues official increases in transportation fares inside, outside the capital
 * Egyptian pound flotation is a historic decision: bank leaders

etc. Level C (talk) 07:34, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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Neutrality dispute
There seems to be a neutrality dispute about this article. What sort of bias does this article have? Jarble (talk) 15:59, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Hi Jarble, thanks for the question. My main complaint is that the following statement in the lead section should be qualified as the opinion of the analyst mentioned in the source. Am sure that other analysts might have different opinions about the state of the Egyptian economy:
 * "Since the 2000s, the pace of structural reforms (including fiscal and monetary policies, taxation, privatisation and new business legislation) helped Egypt move towards a more market-oriented economy and prompted increased foreign investment. The reforms and policies have strengthened macroeconomic annual growth results." Rogermx (talk) 17:11, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

I came here to see if other people had the same opinion; the introduction really doesn't seem very neutral to me. (I haven't read past there yet.) The word "healed" is a bit biased, but my main issue is with how it ends: "The country benefits from political stability; its proximity to Europe, and increased exports. It also enjoys a strong currency. From an investor perspective, Egypt is stable and well-supported by external stakeholders."

1) That proximity to Europe is a good thing is highly debatable; I think that there's a strong case to be made for it and am personally inclined to agree, but it's not empirically true by any means. 2) Claiming "political stability... Egypt is stable" is highly questionable given that within the last decade, they've had a revolution, a coup, ongoing insurgency, scores of clashes between the State and the Muslim Brotherhood, and have regularly dealt with spillover from a civil-war-turned-proxy-war on their doorstep. 3) Further up in the intro it mentions "issues like unemployment and poverty began to decline significantly." I don't know if it's fair to make that assertion given that the article cites ~30% of the population is below the poverty line and that unemployment is at 41.9%...

There are other points beside those, but honestly, those three issues strike me as reason enough to challenge neutrality. I'd offer to do it, but it's best left to someone who properly knows what they're talking about; and for all I know, "proximity to Europe" and "stable from an investor's perspective" are both true assertions, but they should either be backed up by substantial evidence/good sources or else be completely rephrased.Xanthos IV (talk) 01:40, 2 April 2022 (UTC)


 * I believe that the sentence you mention from the introduction is either totally outdated or written from a PR perspective. In any case, it is a subjective assessment that definitely does not belong in the lead section. It could be included in a later section, but it should balanced with different sourced viewpoints on political stability, poverty, etc. Sure, Egypt is close to Europe, but who is saying that it really makes a difference?  What does "stability from an investor perspective mean"?  Some investors will invest in unstable nations if the money is good. Egypt is a US ally - it wouldn't surprise me if the CIA report is being tweaked to make them look better. Like all the other national articles based on CIA reports, this one needs a greater variety of reliable sources.  Thanks for bringing up your concerns! Rogermx (talk) 02:22, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Indeed, good points well made. Are we allowed to add a "the neutrality of this page is disputed" header to the page, or is there specific protocol to follow first? Xanthos IV (talk) 19:28, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
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