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= Military Impact on Egyptian Economy =

Following the Arab Spring, the military tightened control of the Egyptian economy. Misallocation of resources, inequality, social injustice and high unemployment rates during Mubarak’s regime have acted as tools for the army to gain wide economic privileges by promising prosperity in the coming years. However, the military’s role in the Egyptian economy has been unclear given that exact numbers and figures showing the extent to which the army controls the economy are absent.

Involvement of the Armed Forces in economic activity is highly revenue raising for the military. Many projects as well as the provision of goods or services are either run by the military or contracts are provided to military affiliated companies. This ranges from construction to provision of food. The impacts of such a tightly controlled and regulated economy are wide spread and impact currency value, international investment and standard of living.

As a result of the comparative advantage experienced by the military over private enterprise, many non-affiliated companies struggle to remain competitive. As military affiliated corporations are not required to pay taxes, the VAT and import taxes experienced by civilians further increases the difficulty to operate commercially independent of the Armed Forces.