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1 | P a g eU.S. Chamber of Commerce | 1615 H Street, NW | Washington, DC 20062-2000

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U.S. Business Mission to Egypt

September 8-11, 2012




U.S. Business Mission to EgyptSeptember 8-11, 2012

* CTRL+ left-click on the sections below to navigate the briefing document

Table of Contents PROGRAM AND ITINERARY

9. M EMORANDUM FOR M EMBERS OF THE U . S . B USINESS M ISSION

TO E GYPT

13. D ELEGATION P ARTICIPANTS

15. D ELEGATION L EADERSHIP

16. U . S . C HAMBER OF C OMMERCE/ C ORPORATE P ARTICIPANTS

23. O THER P RIVATE S ECTOR L EADERS

24. O THER USG P ARTICIPANTS

25. S CHEDULE

33. T OWARD A C OMMON S HARED V ALUE T HROUGH S OCIAL

E NTREPRENEURSHIP AND C ORPORATE S OCIAL R ESPONSIBILITY

FOR A N EW E GYPT

35. H OTEL AND L OGISTICAL I NFORMATION

37. M ISSION C ONTACTS




39. M INISTRY C ONTACT I NFORMATION

45. V ISA R EQUIREMENTS

BIOGRAPHIES53. B IOGRAPHIES: G OVERNMENT O FFICIALS

57. C ABINET M INISTER B IOGRAPHIES FOR P LANNED M EETINGS

BACKGROUND INFORMATION65. M AP OF E GYPT

67. U.S. D EPARTMENT OF S TATE: 2012 I NVESTMENT C LIMATE S TATEMENT – E GYPT

97. T HE W ORLD F ACTBOOK: E GYPT

119. F REEDOM & J USTICE P ARTY ( FJP ) E CONOMIC P LATFORM

125. E GYPTIAN B USINESS D EVELOPMENT A SSOCIATION ( EBDA )

129. T HE N AHDA ( R ENAISSSANCE) P ROJECT

139. E GYPT IN THE N EWS






Program and Itinerary




Memorandum for Members of the U.S. Business Mission to Egypt




AUGUST 30, 2012

MEMORANDUM FOR MEMBERS OF THE U.S. BUSINESS MISSION TO EGYPT

FROM: KHUSH CHOKSY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTORU.S.-EGYPT BUSINESS COUNCIL

SUBJECT: MISSION OBJECTIVES AND SCOPE

On behalf of the business leaders of this mission, Vice President of Turkey, Middle East and North Africa of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Lionel C. Johnson, the Chairman of the U.S.-Egypt Business Council G. Steven Farris, and the Chairman of our close partner, the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt Gamal Moharam, I wish to thank you for agreeing to participate in the September 8-11 U.S. Business Mission. We are extremely gratified by the significant response to the call for this mission – nearly 50 U.S. companies, and over 100 delegates. It is the largest business delegation ever organized by the U.S. Chamber to the region, and the second largest in the 100-year history of the institution.

During the past 18 months, the Middle East and North Africa region has undergone dramatic transformations and transitions driven by populations seeking a better future for generations to come. It is their hope that these generations can enjoy prosperous economies, more representative governments, and the same expanded liberties and freedoms that we in the United States so cherish. Our mission’s message is simple: Even as Egypt’s transition to democracy continues to unfold, the country remains open for business, and the international community has a stake in helping stabilize and grow its economy.

Our mission will occur against the backdrop of unprecedented change in Egypt. And it also represents a continuation of the U.S.-Egypt Business Council’s significant commitment to long-term, private sector-led growth from which a broader range of Egyptians can benefit. For Egypt’s fledgling government, the expectations of its people are astronomically high. New found political freedoms are giving rise to more robust and spirited national discourse on a new




Egypt. President Mohamed Morsi and his cabinet are still settling into their new roles. With the country awaiting the completion of a new constitutional framework, including fresh elections for parliament, it is imperative that the U.S. business community remain fully engaged now to establish a strong and mutually beneficial relationship with the Egyptian government.

The U.S.-Chamber and the U.S.-Egypt Business Council are well positioned for this mission to engage the government of Egypt. Since February we have reached out to a range of political leaders in Egypt, including the Freedom and Justice Party. In addition, over the past year, the council has prepared policy proposals urging meaningful and development-focused relief of Egypt’s sovereign debt and negotiations leading to a U.S.-Egypt Free Trade Agreement. Finally, and in conjunction with our September mission, we are drafting a set of policy recommendations to the governments of Egypt and the United States that can help undergird Egypt’s economic recovery and chart a course toward long-term, broad-based growth. These studies also provide a basis for our dialogue with the Egyptian government and business leaders.

The new Egyptian government has conveyed its keen desire to engage American businesses in a new relationship rooted in mutual respect and greater understanding of the critical political, economic and social issues that led to the Egyptian revolution. In this new operating environment, our companies have a tremendous opportunity to pioneer an effort to restore Egypt’s economy and further job creation in both our countries. Ours must be regarded as more than a goodwill mission. We can expect substantive meetings that address our business community’s needs and the needs of the Egyptian government. We look forward to learning of their plans to encourage private sector development and foreign direct investment in Egypt, the strengthening of the rule of law, and the restoration of security throughout the country.

Beyond our meetings with government officials, we believe it to be imperative that our delegation meet with leaders of Egyptian civil society. Through this engagement, we hope to demonstrate that the U.S. business community values and respects their perspectives and aspirations for a brighter future for all Egyptians. We look forward to working with a broad range of new Egyptian stakeholders. Accordingly, and through our mission, we look forward your active




participation and hope that our visit to Egypt will help to enhance your appreciation of the new Egypt as well as to help advance your business objectives.

We appreciate the strong encouragement of this September mission by the government of the United States. We therefore welcome the concurrent delegation led by Deputy Secretary of State Thomas Nides, Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economic Affairs Michael Froman, and the Director of the U.S. Trade and Development Agency. Our missions are distinct, but complementary, and they represent the collaborative channeling of resources toward a public-private partnership for sustained development in Egypt.

Egypt has always been a gravitational point for the Middle East and North Africa. Our engagement of Egypt at this crucial moment in history can help to strengthen our relationship with the country’s next generation, help them achieve their development goals and to serve as a positive model to the broader region.




Delegation Participants




U.S.-Egypt Business Council Mission to Egypt

Participants

DELEGATION LEADERSHIP



Apache CorporationG. Steven FarrisChairman & CEO

U.S. Department of StateDeputy Secretary Thomas R. Nides

U.S. Embassy, EgyptAmbassador Anne Patterson

U.S. Chamber of CommerceLionel C. JohnsonVice President for Turkey, Middle East and North Africa Affairs

White HouseMichael FromanAssistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for

American Chamber of Commerce - EgyptGamal MoharamChairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in


U.S. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

Khush Choksy – Executive Director, U.S.-Egypt Business Council

Greg Lebedev – Senior Advisor, U.S. Chamber Vice Chair, Center for International Private Enterprise

Jennifer Miel – Coordinator, Turkey, Middle East and North Africa Affairs

Cole Murray – Consultant, U.S.-Egypt Business CouncilAri Ratner – Consultant, U.S.-Egypt Business CouncilBen Askin – Senior Manager, National Chamber Foundation

CORPORATIONS

Albright Stonebridge/Hogan Lovells US LLPH.P. Goldfield – Vice Chair

Apache CorporationRob Eichler – President & COOVicky Farris – Executive Assistant to G. Steven FarrisTom Voytovich – Region VP and General Manager, Apache Egypt



American Chamber of Commerce - EgyptGamal MoharamChairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in


BechtelDavid Welch – President, Europe, Africa, & Middle East

BioNatural America Institute LLCDr. Ahmed Ghanim – COO

BoeingJeff Johnson – President, Middle East

CargillJohannes Cornelis Steyn – Business Unit Leader, Middle EastYvan Vonkaenel – General Manager, Egypt

Champion Holding Company EgyptMahmoud Wahba – PresidentTimothy Robert Wahba

Case New HollandJoseph Samora – Senior Vice PresidentDiego de la Calle – Business Director, AfricaTolga Ural – Country Manager, EgyptMichael Venet – Manger, Government Affairs

CaterpillarMarc Buncher – Vice PresidentRamzi Imad – Regional Director, MENA

Chartis/AIGMichael Whitwell – Central Regional President, AIG Property &




Casualty

ChryslerAlexander Perkins – Senior Manager, Federal Government AffairsGeorge Sarkis – Manager, Government Affairs

CiscoDuncan Mitchell – Senior VP, EMEAROlaf Krahmer – Cisco Egypt Country ManagerAndrew Levi – VP of Gov’t Affairs, EMEAR

CitiAlberto Verme – Chairman, Europe, Middle East, & Africa BankingAftab Ahmen – Country Officer

The Coca-Cola CompanyCurt Ferguson – President, MENAHamish Banks – Director of Public Affairs and Communication, MENA

Connoisseur TravelJean Newman Glock – Director Leisure and Group Travel

Contrack InternationalWahid Hakki – CEO

Credit Suisse First Boston19 | P a g e

U.S. Chamber of Commerce | 1615 H Street, NW | Washington, DC 20062-2000www.uschamber.com/international/mideast| www.usegyptcouncil.org


Fawzi Kyriakos – CEO, Europe, Middle East, & North AfricaBassam Yammine – Co-CEO for MENA Region

Crowell & MoringDr. Walid Hegazy – Managing PartnerSusannah Ross – Business Development Associate

Cummins, Inc.Dr. Abdallah Alaoui – Senior Advisor, Cummins AfricaJohn Saunders – Director, North Africa Regional Operations

DowKhaldoun Hajaj – Government Affairs Head, MENAMohamed Sabry Abdel Baky – General Manager, Northeast

Africa

EMCWael El Nadi – Regional Director - Global Services Turkey, Emerging Africa & Middle East Mohamed Talaat – General Manager – Egypt, Saudi & Libya




Magued Mahmoud – General Manager – EMC Egypt Center of Excellence

ExelisChris Tucker – VP, International Government Relations

ExxonMobilMichael Gfoeller – Director, MENAAndy Wells – Chairman & Managing DirectorAlison Hills – Senior Regional AdvisorNihad Shelbaya – Public & Government Affairs Manager, Egypt & Cyprus

FedExMaher Hasbini – Managing Director for Planning & Development, Middle EastHassan Bouadar – Senior Legal Advisor, Middle East

General ElectricNabil Habayeb – President and CEO, GE Middle East/AfricaSofiane Ben Tounes – President and CEO, GE Northeast Africa

GoogleWael Fakharany – Regional Director, Egypt & North Africa




Samir Elbahaie – Policy Manager, Middle East & North AfricaNashwa Aly – Public Policy Manager

Hewlett PackardEyad Shihabi – HP Middle East Managing DirectorHussein Hamza – Egypt Managing Director

Hill InternationalWaleed Abdel Fattah – Senior VP & Regional Manager, North Africa RegionPaul Donohue – VP of Operations, Egypt & Libya

IBMDina Galal – Government Programs ExecutiveSusan Tuttle – Director, Middle East & Africa

Intel EgyptKarim Mohamed Fouad El Fateh – General ManagerSameh El Mallah – Business Development Manager

Johnson & JohnsonAhmed Omar Khalil – Country Manager, EgyptAhmed Ezzeldin Mahmoud – General Manger, Egypt




LillyNicolas Chemali – VP Corporate Affairs, Middle East, Turkey, & RussiaAnders Kristenson – General Manger, Egypt

Lockheed MartinPat Dewar – Sr. VP for Strategy & Business DevelopmentCharles Moore Jr. – Regional President, ME/AfricaMostafa A. Sharaf – VP Middle East and Africa Regions

MarriottAlex Kyriakidis – President and Managing Director Middle East and AfricaJeff Strachan – VP of Sales & Marketing, Middle East & Africa

MetLifeJulio Garcia-Villalon – MENA Region HeadRabih Khalek – CEO EgyptDiana Keegan – Assistant VP, Government Relations

MicrosoftCharbel Fakhory – Corporate VPKhaled Abdel Kader – Public Sector Lead,




EgyptYasmin Al Gharbawie – Legal and Corporate Affairs

The Monad GroupMona Eraiba – DirectorOmar Eraiba – Director of Development

Morgan StanleyAmr Diab – Managing Director, MENA BankingKamal Jabre – Regional Head MENA

OracleCharles Anthony Rozwat – Exec. VP, Customer Support ServicesBassel Saeed Mahmoud Mubarak – Egypt Country Leader

ParsonsGuy Mehula – President, MENAHamed Zaghw – Executive Director, MENA, EVP

PepsiCoCharles Freeman – VP, Global Public Policy and Government AffairsAdel Garas – CEO, EgyptJudith Barnett – President, Judith Barnett Group




PfizerAmelle Gaddess – Director, Public Affairs & PolicyRouba Chalabi – Senior Manager, Public Affairs & Policy

Philip MorrisJon Huenemann – VP, U.S. & International AffairsAlireza Takesh – Managing Director, EgyptSalma Mamish – Managing Director of Corporate Affairs, Egypt

RaytheonNigel Sutton – Operations Director

SikorskyTom Weir – Director- Middle East Sales

SiliconExpert TechnologiesOmar Ahmad- President SiliconExpert Technologies & VP Arrow Electronics

VisaTarek Elhousseiny – General Manager, North & West AfricaRola Zaarour – General Manager, North & francophone Africa

XeroxSteve Clay – General Manager, EgyptStephanie Henning – Manager, Global Government Affairs




Ashraf Elarman – Group Marketing Director

OTHER PRIVATE SECTOR LEADERS

Archaeological Institute of AmericaPeter Herdrich – CEO

The Aspen InstituteGabe Ross – Associate Director, Middle East Programs

Club De TunisGhazi Ben Ahmed – Secretary General (Observer)

CIPERanda El Zoghbi

The George Washington UniversityAyman Al Tarabishy – Research Professor & Executive Director of International Council of Small Business

(ICSB)Amir Abdallah – MBA Candidate

The George Washington University Capitol Archaeological InstituteDeborah M. Lehr – Chairman




OTHER USG PARTICIPANTS

Jose Fernandez – Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs

Kenneth Hyatt – Deputy Under Secretary for International Trade, Department of Commerce

John E. Morton – Chief of Staff, Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC)

John Podesta – Special Advisor to the Secretary of State

Leocadia Zak – Director, United States Trade and Development Agency (USTDA)

Maya Seiden – Senior Advisor to Deputy Secretary Nides




Schedule





September 8-11, 2012Agenda – As of August 30th, 2012, 11:00 AM

Arrival in Cairo, Egypt on Saturday, September 8

*We suggest participants stay at the Conrad Hotel; however, participants are welcome to stay at any hotel of their choice. All ground transportation provided by the Council will depart from the Conrad Hotel.

Saturday, September 8, Cairo, Egypt

2:30-4:30 pm Visit to Cairo Museum Hosted by Peter Herdrich, CEO of the Archeological Institute of America (Optional)Venue: Cairo Museum (Bus will depart Cairo Hotel at 2:00 pm)Participants: Delegation (Optional)

7:00-7:30 pm Country Team briefing by U.S. Ambassador PattersonVenue: U.S. Embassy (XXXX Gate) Participants: Delegation, AmCham board, USG leadership, select Embassy Team Members




7:30 pm Reception hosted by Ambassador Patterson Venue: U.S. Ambassador Patterson’s Residence (XXXX Gate, U.S. Embassy)Participants: Delegation, USG leadership, Ambassador and select Embassy Team Members, AmCham board, 50 Egyptian Business guests






7:45-8:15 am Delegation Briefing by U.S.-Egypt Business Council

Venue: Conrad Hotel, Nile RoomParticipants: Delegation

8:30-10:00 am Egyptian Business Leaders Breakfast hosted by American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt Program: Keynote address by Prime Minister Hisham Qandil (Tentative) of Egypt and U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Thomas Nides; Remarks by Chairman of the USEBC G. Steven Farris and Chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in Cairo, Gamal Moharam Venue: Conrad Hotel, Conrad Ballroom Participants: 400-500 guests including entire US delegation, USG leadership, AmCham, Egyptian business guests including broad representation from various business groups

10:15pm Group Departs Conrad hotel for Ministry of Finance




11:00-12:00 pm Minister of Finance Mumtaz al Saeed

Venue: Ministry of Finance – Nasr CityParticipants: Delegation, USG leadership,

Ambassador

12:00-1:30 pm President Mohamed Morsi and Vice President (TBD) Venue: Presidential Palace

2:30-3:30 pm Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohamed Kamel Amr Venue: Ministry of Foreign AffairsParticipants: Delegation, USG leadership,

Ambassador

4:30-5:30 pm Minister of Industry & Foreign Trade Hatem Saleh

Venue: TBD (hotel)/Ministry of Foreign Affairs (33rd Floor Auditorium)

Participants: Delegation, USG leadership, Ambassador

6:45pm Group Departs Conrad hotel for Marriott ZamalekDrive time: 30 minutes

7:30-8:30 pm CSR Event w/Deputy Secretary Nides and Delegation MembersVenue: Cairo Marriott Hotel Zamalek, (View Room)Participants: Select delegates

7:30-8:30 pm Working Meeting on Tourism & Development with the Minister of Tourism Hisham Zaazou (Group will Divide)Venue: Cairo Marriott Hotel Zamalek, Verdi Salon Participants: Select delegates

8:30-10:30 pm Dinner with the Minister of Tourism Hisham Zaazou Hosted by Marriott International




Keynote address by Minister of Tourism Hisham Zaazou; Remarks by Alex Kyriakidis, President of Middle East and North Africa, Marriott International and Peter Hedrich, CEO of Archaeological Institute of AmericaVenue: Cairo Marriott Hotel Zamalek, Eugenie Salon Participants: Delegation, USG leadership, Ambassador






Monday, September 10, Cairo, Egypt

8:30-10:30 am Breakfast with Leaders of Key Political Parties

Venue: Conrad Hotel, Nile RoomParticipants: Delegation, USG leadership, Ambassador, representatives of major political parties

10:30am Select group departs hotel for Smart VillageDrive time: 60 minutes

11:30-12:30 pm Minister of Communications and Information Technology Hany Mahmoud

Venue: Smart Village (Cairo-Alex Desert Road) Participants: Select delegates

12:30pm Select group departs Smart Village for Four Seasons Nile PlazaDrive time: 60 minutes




1:30-3:30 pm Lunch with Minister of Investment Osama Saleh

Venue: Four Seasons Nile Plaza, Nile Plaza Ballroom

Participants: Delegation, USG leadership, Ambassador

4:00-5:30 pm Meeting with Egypt Business Development Association (EBDA)

Venue: Four Seasons Nile Plaza (Room XXXX)

Participants: Delegation, USG leadership, Ambassador, EBDA members

7:00-9:30 pm Dinner & Reception “Toward a Common Shared Value through Social Entrepreneurship and Corporate Social Responsibility in a New Egypt: A Dinner Challenge”Venue: Four Seasons Nile Plaza Hotel, Nile RoomParticipants: Delegation, USG leadership, Ambassador, Egyptian entrepreneurs, and Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO) members




TOWARD A COMMON SHARED VALUE THROUGH SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP

AND CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR A NEW EGYPT:

U.S. & EGYPT EXECUTIVE DINNER CHALLENGE

Monday, September 10, 2012

7:00pm to 9:30pm

The Four Seasons Nile Plaza Hotel

Moderated By

Dr. Ayman El Tarabishy

Associate Professor of Management




The George Washington University School of BusinessExecutive Director for the International Council for Small

Business (ICSB)




Hotel and Logistical Information




MISSION CONTACTS

U.S. EMBASSY IN CAIRO, EGYPT

5 Tawfik Diab StreetGarden City, Cairo, EgyptTelephone: (20-2)-2797-3300 Fax: (20-2)-2797-3200

AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, EGYPT

Hisham FahmyCEO33 Soliman Abaza St, Dokki – GizaTelephone: (20-2)[email protected]

Sylvia ManessaDeputy Executive Director & Department Manger33 Soliman Abaza St, Dokki - GizaTelephone: (20-2)-3338-1050Guest fax: (20-2)-3338-1060

THE CONRAD HOTEL

1191 Corniche El Nil, Cairo, 11221, EgyptPhone: (20-2)-2580-800 [email protected]

U.S. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

Lionel C. JohnsonVice President, Turkey, Middle East and North AfricaPhone: (+1) 202-660-2332Email: [email protected]

Khush ChoksySenior Director, Turkey, Middle East and North AfricaExecutive Director, U.S.-Egypt Business CouncilPhone: (+1) 202-604-9058Email: [email protected]

Cole MurrayConsultant, U.S.-Egypt Business CouncilEmail: [email protected]



mailto:[email protected]





Jennifer MielCoordinator, Turkey, Middle East and North Africa AffairsEmail: [email protected]





MINISTRY CONTACT INFORMATION

MINISTRY OF ELECTRICITY AND ENERGY Address: 8 Ramses Str. Ext. , El Abbaseeya Sq.- Cairo Tel: 24012361 - 24012362Fax: 22616302http://www.moee.gov.eg

MINISTRY OF HOUSING, UTILITIES & URBAN DEVELOPMENT Address: 1 Ismail Abaza str. El Kasr El Einy str. 3rd FloorTel: 27921440 - 27921441Fax: 27957836http://www.moh.gov.eg

MINISTRY OF TOURISM Address: Cairo International Conferences Center - Nasr City - CairoTel: 22611732 - 26839968Fax: 26859551 - 26859463http://www.egypt.travel

MINISTRY OF STATE FOR LOCAL DEVELOPMENT Address: 4 Shooting Club Street - ElDokkiTel: 37497470Fax: 37497788http://www.mold.gov.eg

MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS Address: Kornish el Nile, Maspiro- CairoTel: 25749820 - 25749821



http://www.mold.gov.eg/

http://www.egypt.travel/

http://www.moh.gov.eg/

http://www.moee.gov.eg/


Fax: 25748822http://www.mfa.gov.eg

MINISTRY OF STATE FOR MILITARY PRODUCTION Address: 5 Ismail ABaza St. Lazoghly- CairoTel: 27948739Fax: 27953063http://www.isccnet.iscc.gov.eg

MINISTRY OF WATER RESOURCES AND IRRIGATION Address: Gamal Abdel Naser St., Imbaba, GizaTel: 35449453- 35449534Fax: 35449534http://www.mwri.gov.eg

MINISTRY OF PLANNING AND INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION Address: 8 Adly street - CairoTel: 23910008Fax: 23908159http://www.mic.gov.eg

MINISTRY OF SUPPLY AND SOCIAL AFFAIRS Address: 99 Elkasr Eleeny street - CairoTel: 3375404Fax: 3375390 - 3365074http://www.mss.gov.eg

MINISTRY OF PETROLEUM AND METALLURGICAL WEALTH Address:1 Ahmed El Zomor str. Nasr City, next to Enppi- CairoTel: 26706401 - 26706402Fax: 26706419http://www.petroleum.gov.eg

MINISTRY OF RELIGIOUS ENDOWMENT (AWKAF) Address: Sabry Abu Alam Str., Bab El Louq, CairoTel: 23933011 - 23929403Fax: 23929828 - 23926155http://www.awkaf.org

MINISTRY OF INDUSTRY AND TRADE



http://www.awkaf.org/

http://www.petroleum.gov.eg/

http://www.mss.gov.eg/

http://www.mic.gov.eg/

http://www.mwri.gov.eg/

http://www.isccnet.iscc.gov.eg/

http://www.mfa.gov.eg/


Address: 2 Latin America street - Garden City - CairoTel: 27921193 - 27921194Fax: 27940554http://www.mti.gov.eg

MINISTRY OF COMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Address: KM 28 Cairo - Alexandria Road - Smart VillageTel: 35341010 - 35341020Fax: 35371111http://www.mcit.gov.eg

MINISTRY OF JUSTICE Address: Lazoghly Sq. - CairoTel: 27922263Fax: 27958103http://www.moj.gov.eg

MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT Address:105 El Kasr- El Einy St.Tel: 27955562 - 27955563Fax: 27955564http://www.mot.gov.eg

MINISTRY OF MEDIA Address: Radio and Television Broadcasting Building- Maspiro- Kornesh el Nile- CairoTel: 25757164 - 25787120Fax: 25746928http://www.minfo.gov.eg

MINISTRY OF INTERIOR Address: 25 El Sheikh Rihan street- CairoTel: 27955005Fax: 27960682http://www.moiegypt.gov.eg

MINISTRY OF STATE ENVIRONMENT AFFAIRS Address: 30 Misr- Helwan Agricultural Road ـ Maadi ـ Cairo



http://www.moiegypt.gov.eg/

http://www.minfo.gov.eg/

http://www.mot.gov.eg/

http://www.moj.gov.eg/

http://www.mcit.gov.eg/

http://www.mti.gov.eg/


Tel: 25256442 - 25256462Fax: 25256452http://www.eeaa.gov.eg

MINISTRY OF MANPOWER AND IMMIGRATION Address: 3 Yousseff Abbas St., Nasr City, CairoTel: 22609359 - 22602199Fax: 23035332http://www.manpower.gov.eg

MINISTRY OF FINANCE Address: Ministry of Finance Towers, NasrcityFax: 26861561http://www.mof.gov.eg

MINISTRY OF CIVIL AVIATION Address: Airport Road- CairoTel: 22677610 - 22677612Fax: 22679470http://www.civilaviation.gov.eg

MINISTRY OF INSURANCE AND SOCIAL AFFAIRS Address: 19 Maraghi St. , Agouza, Giza , Egypt Tel: 27947315 - 27948358Fax: 33375390http://www.ngolaw.org.eg

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION Address: 12 Falaki StreetTel: 27947363 - 27949993Fax: 27947502http://www.emoe.org

MINISTRY OF STATE FOR ANTIQUITIES AFFAIRS Tel: 27358761 - 273560645 - 27371724



http://www.emoe.org/

http://www.ngolaw.org.eg/

http://www.civilaviation.gov.eg/

http://www.mof.gov.eg/

http://www.manpower.gov.eg/

http://www.eeaa.gov.eg/


Fax: 27357239

MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND LANDS CULTIVATION Address: 1 Nady el Seid str. Dokki, CairoTel: 33373003 - 33372970Fax: 33372435http://www.agri.gov.eg

MINISTRY OF CULTURE Address: 2 Shagaret el Dorr street, Zamalek- CairoTel: 27380761 - 27380762Fax: 27353947http://www.ecm.gov.eg

MINISTRY OF MANPOWER AND IMMIGRATION Address: 3 Yousseff Abbas St., Nasr City, CairoTel: 22609359 - 22602199Fax: 23035332http://www.manpower.gov.eg

MINISTRY OF STATE FOR THE PEOPLE"S ASSEMBLY AND SHURA COUNCIL AFFAIRS

Address: 2 Magless El Shaab Street

MINISTRY OF HEALTH AND HOUSING Address: 3 Magless El Shaab st.Tel: 27943462 - 27942865Fax: 27953966http://www.mohp.gov.eg



http://www.mohp.gov.eg/

http://www.manpower.gov.eg/

http://www.ecm.gov.eg/

http://www.agri.gov.eg/


Visa Requirements




Visa Requirements

Download Forms:

Visa Application Form

Two 2” x 2”, recent high definition personal passport photos on white background.

Passport (still valid for at least 6 months) and has an empty Visa page.

Fees: Payments are in Cash or Money Order only (Money Order is payable to the Consulate of Egypt).

For Non-Americans : Please provide, photocopy of green card or valid U.S. Visa and photocopy of round-trip ticket or itinerary. Student Visa Holders PLEASE ALSO PROVIDE a Registration Letter from school.

For Business visa : a letter from the company indicating the purpose of the trip and financial guarantee of the company.

Diplomatic Passport Holder : Please provide diplomatic note stating purpose and dates of travel.

Note: In case Biometric data is required an appointment will be set for personal appearance.

7. Official Passport Holder : Please provide official note stating purpose and dates of travel.

Note: In cases Biometric data is required an appointment will be set for personal appearance.

8. United Nations Laissez Passer Holder: Please provide official note stating purpose and dates of travel.

9. MAILED APPLICATIONS : please provide a Self-Addressed Stamped certified envelope for the return of the passport, such as Express Mail or Certified Mail. Via ANY OVERNIGHT COURIER, please send money order. We do not take responsibility for any loss that may occur in mailing passports.

10. Mailing Address: Consulate of the Arab Republic of Egypt

3521 International Court, N.W.

Washington, D. C. 20008

Tel: +1(202) 966-6342 Fax: +1(202) 895-5478

Applications are processed in 10 business days (plus mailing for mailed application).

VISA FEES 51 | P a g e



http://www.egyptembassy.net/visa.pdf

Nationalities Single

Tourist

Multiple

Tourist

Single

Business

Multiple

Business

United States of America $ 15.00 $15.00 $ 25.00 $ 40.00

Russia $ 15.00 $15.00 $ 25.00 $ 40.00

Denmark $ 15.00 $15.00 $ 25.00 $ 40.00

Finland $ 15.00 $15.00 $ 25.00 $ 40.00

Norway $ 15.00 $15.00 $ 25.00 $ 40.00

Sweden $ 15.00 $15.00 $ 25.00 $ 40.00

Cyprus $ 15.00 $15.00 $ 25.00 $ 40.00

Guinea $ 15.00 $15.00 $ 25.00 $ 40.00

Germany $ 20.00 $ 25.00 $ 25.00 $ 40.00

Canada $ 20.00 $ 25.00 $ 50.00 $ 70.00

United Kingdom $ 20.00 $ 25.00 $ 80.00 $ 145.00

South Africa Gratis Gratis Gratis Gratis

Other Nationals $20.00 $ 25.00 $25.00 $ 40.00

Diplomatic Passport

Holder

Gratis Gratis

UN Laissez Passer Gratis Gratis

Official Passport Holder Gratis Gratis




Other Nationalities such as:

Eritrea Ethiopia Burundi Rowanda Liberia Ghana Sierra Leone Mali Niger Chad Afghanistan Iraq Palestine Philippines Lebanon – (ages 16 to 50 years old) Morocco Mauritania Nigeria Tunis Bosnia – ( of Egyptian Origin) Congo Peoples Republic of China Somalia Algeria Cyprus Sudan Thailand Kosovo Libya-(men ages 18-45 years old) Pakistan Moldova – (Female ages 15 to 35 years old)

Please contact the closest Consular Office prior to completing the visa application

Note: In case Biometric data is required, an appointment will be set for personal appearance.






Biographies




BIOGRAPHIES: GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS

President: Muhammad Morsi Isa’ al-Ayyat

Born on August 20, 1951 in Sharquia Governorate of Egypt, Morsi earned a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree in engineering from Cairo University in 1975-1978 and a Ph.D. in engineering from the University of Southern California in 1982. He worked as an Assistant Professor at California State University, Northridge from 1982-1985, and eventually served as a Member of Parliament from 2000-2005 as an independent candidate. Until the foundation of the Freedom and Justice Party in 2011, Morsi was a member of the Guidance Office of the Muslim Brotherhood. He is the Chairman of the Freedom and Justice Party.

Prime Minister: Hasham Qandil

Hasham was born in 1962 and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the University of Cairo in 1984. He then went on to earn a master’s degree in irrigation and drainage engineering from Utah State University in 1988 and a PhD from North Carolina State University in 1993. Upon returning to Egypt, he worked at the ministry of water resources and irrigation’s National Water Research Centre. In 1999-2005 he was appointed office director for the minister of water resources. In 2011 Mr.




Qandil was appointed minister of water resources in the government of Essam Sharaf. In July 2012, he travelled with Mr. Morsi to an African Union summit, where the new president sought to improve ties with Egypt’s neighbors.

U.S. Ambassador to Egypt: Anne Patterson

Anne Patterson joined the Foreign Service in 1973 and was promoted to Career Ambassador, the highest rank in the career Foreign Service, in 2008. She has been Ambassador to Pakistan (2007-2010), Ambassador to Colombia (2000-2003) and Ambassador to El Salvador (1997-2000).

She has also served as Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations, as Assistant Secretary of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement, and as Deputy Inspector General of the Department of State. Mrs. Patterson has held a variety of economic and political assignments in her career, including economic counselor in Saudi Arabia (1984-1988) and deputy assistant secretary for Latin America. Mrs. Patterson has been awarded the Secretary’s Distinguished Service Award twice, in 2010 and 2008, and the Ryan Crocker award for expeditionary diplomacy in 2010.

A native of Arkansas, Mrs. Patterson is married to retired Foreign Service officer David Patterson. She graduated from Wellesley College.

Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources: Thomas R. Nides

Thomas Nides is Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources, serving as Chief Operating Officer of the Department. Appointed by President Obama, he was confirmed by the Senate on December 22, 2010 and sworn in on January 3, 2011.




Prior to joining the administration, Mr. Nides was the Chief Operating Officer of Morgan Stanley, a leading global financial services firm from 2005 to 2010. He was an executive officer and served as a member of Morgan Stanley’s Management Committee and Operating Committee. Before joining Morgan Stanley, Mr. Nides served as Worldwide President and Chief Executive Officer of Burson-Marsteller and as Chief Administrative Officer of Credit Suisse First Boston, the investment banking division of Zurich-based Credit Suisse Group.

Mr. Nides began his career on Capitol Hill, as Assistant to the Majority Whip of the United States House of Representatives and Executive Assistant to the Speaker of the House. Mr. Nides later served as Senior Vice President of Fannie Mae and as Chief of Staff to the United States Trade Representative.

Prior to assuming his current position, Mr. Nides served on the Boards of New York Cares, the Urban Alliance Foundation, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Local Initiatives Support Corporation, Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association and the Advisory Board of the National Zoo.

Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economic Affairs: Michael Froman

Michael Froman is the Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economic Affairs. He is responsible for coordinating policy on international trade, investment, energy, climate and development issues. He serves as the U.S. Sherpa for the G20 and G8 Summits, and staffs the President for the APEC Summits. In addition, he is the chair of the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate, a group of the largest industrial and emerging economies which have been working through issues related to the Copenhagen negotiations. He is also the U.S. Government co-chair of the Transatlantic Economic Council, the U.S.-India CEO Forum and the U.S.-Brazil CEO Forum.

Before his second White House tour, Mr. Froman served in a number of roles at Citigroup, including Managing Partner, Infrastructure and Sustainable Development Investments, Chief Operating Officer of Citi




Alternative Investments (CAI), President and CEO of CitiInsurance (Citigroup’s international insurance business), Director of Emerging Markets Strategy, Chief of Staff of the Office of the Chairman and Chief Operating Officer of the Internet Operating Group.

Prior to joining Citigroup, Mr. Froman was a Senior Fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations and a Resident Fellow at the German Marshall Fund.

In the 1990’s, Mr. Froman spent seven years in the U.S. Government. He served as Chief of Staff and as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Eurasia and the Middle East at the U.S. Department of Treasury under Secretary Robert E. Rubin. He also worked at the White House, where he served as Director for International Economic Affairs at the National Security Council and National Economic Council.

Mr. Froman received a bachelor’s degree in Public and International Affairs from Princeton University (summa cum laude), a doctorate in International Relations from Oxford University and law degree from Harvard Law School (magna cum laude), where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. He was born in California. He, his wife, Nancy F. Goodman, and their son, Benjamin, live in New York City.




CABINET MINISTER BIOGRAPHIES FOR PLANNED MEETINGS

(Please Follow This Link for a Complete List of Egyptian Cabinet Members)

Minister of Finance: Mumtaz al-Saeed

Political Affiliation: Independent

Born in 1948, Minister El Saied received his Bachelor’s degree in accounting from Ein Shams University in 1971 He joined the Ministry of Finance (MOF) in 1972 and served as General Manager of the International Organization Division in 1990, Chief of the Central Treasury Department in the State General Budget Sector in 1996, then chief of minister’s office from 2003 until 2008 then special advisor to the minister in 2011. Later he was appointed as deputy minister by the Supreme Council of Armed Forces 2010/2011. He is a member of the board of directors of the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE), the National Investment Bank, the Postal Authority and the South Africa

Minister of Industry and Foreign Trade: Hatem Saleh


As Ex-CEO of Gozour, Saleh enjoys 18 years of experience in the field of the fast-moving consumer goods acquired through his extensive experience with multinational companies like Proctor & Gamble, Farm Frites, and Unilever. He was also the Managing Director of the

International Company for Agricultural Industrialization Projects “BEITI”

Minister of Foreign Affairs: Mohamed Kamel Amr



http://www.usegyptcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/AmCham-Egypt-Newly-Appointed-Cabinet-Ministers.pdf

http://www.usegyptcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/AmCham-Egypt-Newly-Appointed-Cabinet-Ministers.pdf



An Egyptian diplomat who served in this (Foreign Affairs Minister) since July 2011. Previously, he was Alternate Executive Director, representing Egypt and 13 Arab countries on the Executive Board of Directors of the World Bank in Washington DC. He was also the Ambassador of Egypt to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Deputy Assistant Foreign Minister for African Organizations, and Counselor, Egyptian

Minister of Tourism: Hisham Zaazou


Minister Zaazou served a first assistant to the Minister of Tourism from 2008 till 2011. Prior to that, he managed R&H Tourism Co. activities and was behind its global expansion into Egypt. He also served as General Manager of the Sakkara Travel Group and Director General of the Egyptian Tourism Federation. He is on the Boards of Egyptian Tourism Federation, Egyptian Tourist Authority, Tourism Development Authority, and the Arab Tourism Organization.

Minister of Investment: Osama Saleh


Born in 1960, Minister Saleh graduated from the Faculty of Commerce, Cairo University in 1982. He served as chairman of the Egyptian Mortgage Finance Authority (EMF) from 2005 until July 2009. In September 2009, he became chairman of the General Authority for Investment (GAFI) under Nazif’s cabinet. He is a board member of the Egyptian Financial Supervisory Authority. Mr. Saleh has a 25-year banking experience where he also served as Regional manager of American Express Bank Ltd.




Minister of International Cooperation & Planning: Ashraf Al-Arabi


H.E. Minister El-Araby spent his career almost entirely at the country’s National Planning Institute. An economist by training, El-Araby received his PhD from Kansas State University in the United States. From 2006 until the end of 2011 he headed the technical advisory office of the former planning minister, Fayza Abdul-Naga. After a brief interlude, during which he worked at the Arab Planning Institute in Kuwait, Al-Araby was called back to head the ministry.

Minister of Supply and Internal Trade: Abou Zeid Mohamed Abou Zeid

Political Affiliations: Independent

Before his appointment as supply and interior trade minister, Minister Abu-Zeid served as vice president of Egypt’s Food Industries Holding Company. Founded in 1983, the Food Industries Holding Company is a state-owned company boasting a capital of LE2.4 billion. The company comprises 23 companies working in the fields of sugar, fodder, milk, pasta, paper and preserved food production.

Minister of Petroleum & Metallurgical Wealth: Osama Mohamed Kamal


Ex-chairman of the Egyptian Petrochemicals Holding Company (Echem) since 2009. He began his career as an engineer at the state-owned Engineering for Petroleum and Process Industries (Enppi). Several years later, he moved to Petrojet, another public-sector energy company.




Minister of Agriculture and Lands Cultivation: Salah Abdel-Moamen


He obtained his Ph.D. in agricultural sciences (plant pathology) from the University of Texas in the United States. He was previously the president of the Institute of Plant Pathology Research, and Deputy Head of the Agricultural Research Centre.




Minister of State for Antiquities Affairs: Mohamed Ibrahim


Secretary General of the Commission’s legitimate rights and reform and the Under-Madinah International University in Malaysia and holds a doctorate in chemical engineering as well as Islamic law. He also served as Chairman of the Dawn Center to teach Arabic to non-native speakers at the Ministry of Education.

Minister of Communications and Information Technology: Hany Mahmoud Abdel Megeed


Former Executive Vice-President of Vodafone and former CEO of the Egyptian Post office. Served in information office for prime minister.

Minister of Electricity and Energy: Mahmoud Balbaa’


Previous Head of Electricity Holding Company

Minister of Health & Population: Dr. Mohamed Hamed Mostafa





Professor at Faculty of Medicine at Cairo University




Minister of Housing and Urban Development: Tarek Wafik

Political Affiliation: FJP

Urban planning professional and economics expert

Minister of State for Local Development: Eng. Ahmed Zaki Abdeen

Political Affiliations- Independent

Ex-governor of Kafr El-Sheikh, he was appointed the head of Dar El-Hayaa El-Handasia which is affiliated with the armed forces. Served as military attaché at the Egyptian Embassy in Washington, and assumed the presidency of the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics, and Head of the CCAMLR construction cooperatives.

Minster of Utilities, Drinking Water & Sewage: Abdel-Qawi Khalifa


Governor of Cairo






Background Information




U.S. Department of State:2012 Investment Climate

Statement - Egypt




2012 INVESTMENT CLIMATE STATEMENT - EGYPTBUREAU OF ECONOMIC AND BUSINESS AFFAIRSJune 2012Report

Overview of Foreign Investment Climate

Egypt has experienced profound political changes over the past year. On February 11, 2011, President Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule came to an end under intense popular pressure as hundreds of thousands of Egyptians converged on Tahrir Square. Transition to democratic rule has been marked by advances and challenges. Egypt has seen several prime ministers and multiple cabinet changes since the revolution, and many investors have reported that the constant shuffle and interim tenure of government officials have contributed to a difficult business environment. Nonetheless, in January 2012 Egypt seated its first parliament elected in free and fair elections, and many of the members have identified increasing foreign investment as a top priority for the government.

Egypt continues to honor its pre-revolution laws, international treaties, and trade agreements. It is party to 111 bilateral investment treaties and is a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), and the Greater Arab Free Trade Area (GAFTA). In most sectors, there is no legal difference between foreign and domestic investors. There are, however, special requirements for foreign investment in particular sectors, such as upstream oil and gas development, where joint ventures are required. There have also been recent legal challenges




to privatizations of formerly state-owned enterprises, including sales of state assets from as far back as 1996.

Egypt has devised several schemes intended to attract foreign direct investment into special economic and trade zones. The General Authority for Investment (GAFI) implements Egypt’s policies and procedures to facilitate doing business, including maintaining Egypt’s one-stop shop for investors. GAFI's one-stop shop, which aspires to process approvals for new investments within 72 hours, brings together several of the major government ministries needed to establish a new investment. The Egyptian tax code taxes personal income and corporate profits for both foreigners and nationals at 20% for income below LE 1 million and 25% for income above LE 1 million. According to the World Bank’s Doing Business Index for 2012, Egypt (ranked 110 out of 183 countries) made significant progress prior to the revolution in easing the procedures for opening a business.

Foreign direct investment accounted for less than 25% of all investment in Egypt prior to the revolution and has fallen tremendously since. Significant impediments to investment exist. Following the revolution, Egypt put into place capital transfer restrictions that prevent foreign companies from sending more than $100,000 out of Egypt without a valid commercial purpose, original documentation, and approval by the Central Bank of Egypt. Investors report that it can take several weeks for legitimate transfers to be executed. Labor rules prevent companies from hiring more than 10% non-Egyptians (25% in Free Zones), and foreigners are not allowed to operate sole proprietorships or simple partnerships. The lack of protection of intellectual property rights (IPR) is a major hurdle to direct investment in Egypt, which remains on the U.S. Trade Representative’s Special 301 Watch List for IPR violations. Egypt’s trade regulations prohibit foreigners from acting as importers for trading purposes and allow them to act solely as commercial agents. A foreign company wishing to import for trading purpose must do so through an Egyptian importer.

Although Egypt is a signatory to international arbitration agreements, Egyptian courts do not always recognize foreign judgments.




Resolution of any dispute is very slow, with the time to adjudicate a case to completion averaging three to five years. The judicial system is also subject, in some cases, to political influence.

Other obstacles to investment include excessive bureaucracy, a shortage of skilled labor, limited access to credit, slow and cumbersome customs procedures, and non-tariff trade barriers.

Business Sectors:

Banking

The Central Bank of Egypt has not issued a new commercial banking license since 1979. The only way for a new commercial bank, whether foreign or domestic, to enter the market (except as a representative office) is to purchase an existing bank. As part of its 2004 plan to restructure the banking sector, the government has sold shares in several joint venture banks to foreign banking entities. The first public bank to be partially privatized was the Bank of Alexandria (now AlexBank), which was sold to Sanpaolo Intesa of Italy in 2006. However, the privatization sale is now being challenged in Egyptian court and could be unwound entirely. In 2008, the Central Bank invited bids for a 67% stake in Banque du Caire, but it cancelled the auction when the highest bid came in US$250 million below its target price of US$1.6 billion. In 2009, the Central Bank announced that it had no plans to privatize the three remaining state-owned banks (Banque Misr, Banque du Caire, National Bank of Egypt), citing poor market conditions. These three banks control at least 40 percent of the banking sector's assets.

Insurance

The government does not issue licenses for new insurance companies. As in the banking sector, foreign firms can only enter the Egyptian insurance market through purchase of a stake in an existing insurance company. In 2006, the now-defunct Ministry of Investment (MOI) began restructuring public insurance companies in preparation for privatization. In September 2007, the companies were merged and




placed under an insurance holding company, and real estate assets were stripped out of the companies and transferred to a newly established affiliate, Misr for Real Estate. However, there have been no significant events in this regard since 2007.

Oil and Gas

The petroleum industry is one of the most dynamic industries in Egypt and petroleum production is by far the largest single industrial activity, representing approximately 16 percent of Egypt’s GDP. The Egyptian government encourages international oil companies (IOC) to participate in the oil and gas sector, and currently more than fifty IOC are operating in Egypt. The petroleum industry in Egypt is managed by the Ministry of Petroleum, under which four companies function as government agencies. One of these is the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC), which concludes concession agreements in cooperation with IOC in the form of production sharing agreement (PSA). Egypt grants concessions in a specific area through the promulgation of a “special law” by the Egyptian Parliament, which allows the Minister of Petroleum to conclude an agreement between the Egyptian Government on one side and the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) acting as the concession holder and the foreign oil investor (IOC) acting as a Contractor on the other side. This legislative act gives new agreements supremacy in application over any contrary legislation or regulation. After concluding the agreement, any contractual changes are remedied through amicable adaptation of its provisions or arbitration.

These safeguards were specifically devised to forge trust with foreign investors and improve investment in the petroleum sector. In July 2010, GOE concluded a novel agreement with BP for exploration in the North Alexandria and West Mediterranean deepwater concessions. BP’s agreement is unique in that it resembles a service contract, rather than the traditional production-sharing agreement; nevertheless, it is unlikely this new breed of agreement will become the norm. Electricity shortages during August and September 2010 revealed that Egypt’s energy sector is not immune to political risk, as domestic pressure mounted to reduce natural gas supplied under




export agreements, specifically sales to Israel. 2011 saw a series of attacks against the natural gas pipeline network carrying gas to both Israel and Jordan. These attacks, combined with domestic demand, caused a reduction in the those exports for 2011 to 30% of contractual quantities. Public protests have also stalled a major BP deep water natural gas project that was expected to produce 35% of Egypt’s domestic needs in the coming five years.

Telecommunications

Telecommunications Law 10 of 2003 stipulated that Telecom Egypt (TE) would relinquish its monopoly status as Egypt's sole domestic fixed-line operator and sole international operator by January 2006 and provided for greater flexibility in selling shares of TE through public offerings. As of January 2012, however, Egypt's Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) had still not issued a license for a second fixed-line operator and had no near-term plans to do so. Egypt has issued three mobile phone operator licenses, with the most recent acquired by Etisalat in July 2006 at a cost of US$2.9 billion. Etisalat Egypt, MobiNil, and Vodafone Egypt compete heavily in the mobile telecommunications market, where there are more than 65 million mobile lines. A major focus of these companies will continue to be expansion of data services which is viewed as an area with potentially high profit margins. In January 2012, the National Telecommunication Regulatory Authority announced that it might soon issue a fourth license in the form of a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) license to Telecom Egypt under which it could lease and resell capacity from another operator.

Tourism

The tourism sector contributes significantly to Egypt’s GDP and employs one in eight Egyptian workers. The Egyptian revolution decimated the industry, resulting in a sharp drop in tourists ( 9.5 million in 2011 vs. 14 million in 2010) and revenue ($8.8bn in 2011 vs. $12.5bn in 2010), according to official figures. In 2005, Egypt removed restrictions on foreign property ownership in a number of tourist areas, including resorts on the Red Sea beach and along the




Mediterranean cost west of Alexandria, and prior to the revolution, Egypt expected significant new investment in hotels and tourism infrastructure. The Government of Egypt expects the sector to begin recovering in 2012.

Research and Development

Large-scale R&D activities in Egypt are relatively modest. The majority of government-funded R&D programs are in agriculture, health, and, to a lesser extent in the manufacturing sector. There are no reports of discrimination against U.S. or other foreign firms wishing to participate in R&D programs in Egypt. Most Egyptian R&D programs are established by government initiative to target specific problems and/or opportunities.

Key Laws Governing Foreign Investment:

Investment Incentives Law 8 of 1997 was designed to encourage domestic and foreign investment in targeted economic sectors and to promote decentralization of industry from the crowded Nile Valley area. The law allows 100 percent foreign ownership of investment projects and guarantees the right to remit income earned in Egypt and to repatriate capital. Other key provisions include: guarantees against confiscation, sequestration, and nationalization; the right to own land; the right to maintain foreign-currency bank accounts; freedom from administrative attachment; the right to repatriate capital and profits; and equal treatment regardless of nationality.

Law 94 of 2005 amended the Investment Incentives Law and made companies incorporated under the Investment Incentives Law subject to relatively simpler incorporation. It also granted companies established under the Companies Law or the Commercial Law certain incentives under the Investment Incentives Law, including protection from nationalization, imposition of obligatory pricing and cancellation or suspension of licenses to use immovable property. It also granted companies the right to own real estate required for their activities and the right to import raw materials, machinery, spare parts and transportation methods without being required to register at the Importers Register.




Companies Law 159 of 1981 applies to domestic and foreign investment in sectors not covered by the Investment Incentives Law, whether shareholder, joint stock, or limited liability companies, representative offices, or branch offices. The law permits automatic company registration upon presentation of an application to GAFI, with some exceptions. It also removes a previous legal requirement that at least 49 percent of shareholders be Egyptian; allows 100 percent foreign representation on the board of directors; and strengthens accounting standards. Founders of joint stock and limited liability companies must submit a bank certificate to GAFI showing that 10 percent of the company's issued capital has been paid in.

Public Enterprise Law 203 of 1991 permits sales of state enterprises to foreign entities. Egypt began a privatization program under the Public Enterprise Law for the sale of several hundred wholly or partially state-owned enterprises and all public shares of at least 660 joint venture companies (joint venture defined as mixed state and private ownership, whether foreign or domestic). Since 2008, however, the GOE has not undertaken any new privatizations, and senior officials have said that the government will retain majority stakes in the 150 public companies that remain under the MOI's authority. Instead, the GOE is reportedly considering selling minority stakes in some of the companies and restructuring others. Bidding criteria for privatizations are generally clear and transparent.

Tenders Law 89 of 1998 requires the government to consider both price and best value in awarding contracts and to issue an explanation for refusal of a bid. However, the law contains preferences for Egyptian domestic contractors, who are accorded priority if their bids do not exceed the lowest foreign bid by more than 15 percent.

Capital Markets Law 95 of 1992 and its amendments and regulations govern Egypt’s capital markets. Foreign investors can buy shares on the Egyptian Stock Exchange on the same basis as local investors. Brokerage firms have capital requirements of LE 5 million (US$862,000), and same-day trading on the Egyptian stock market is allowed. As of January 2011, 47 brokerage firms have licenses for




same-day or intra-day trading.

Law 123 of 2008 amended the Capital Markets Law to allow local and foreign institutions to issue bonds at a par value of LE 0.10 (US$0.02).

Decree No. 719 for 2007 by the Ministry of Industry and Foreign Trade and Ministry of Finance provides incentives for industrial projects in the governorates of Upper Egypt (Upper Egypt refers to governorates in southern Egypt). The decree provides an incentive of 15,000 Egyptian Pounds (US$2,586) for each job opportunity created by the project, on the condition that the investment costs of the project exceed LE 15 million (US$2.6 million). The decree can be implemented on both new and on-going projects.

Land/Real Estate Law 15 of 1963 explicitly prohibits foreign individual or corporate ownership of agricultural land (defined as traditional agricultural land in the Nile Valley, Delta and Oases).

Prime Ministerial Decree No. 548 for 2005 removed restrictions on foreign property ownership in a number of tourist and new urban areas, namely the Red Sea coast, including of Hurghada, the Mediterranean beach resorts of Sidi Abdel-Rahman and Ras Al-Hekma, also in the Matrouh Governorate. Foreign owners are still limited to a maximum of two residences in Egypt. Companies/citizens of other Arab countries have customarily received national treatment in this area.

Insurance Law 156 of 1998 removes a 49 percent ceiling on foreign ownership of insurance companies, allows privatization of state-owned insurance companies, and abolishes a ban on foreign nationals serving as corporate officers.

Electricity Law 18 of 1998 allows the government to sell minority shares of electricity distribution companies to private shareholders, both domestic and foreign. A draft electricity law expected to be




enacted in 2011 will further open electricity generation and distribution to the private sector.

Maritime Law 1 of 1998 permits private companies, including foreign investors, to conduct most maritime transport activities, including loading, supplying, and ship repair.

Commercial Law 17 of 1999 has more than 700 articles covering general commerce, commercial contracts, banking transactions, commercial paper, and bankruptcy.

Central Depository Law 93 of 2000 reduces risks associated with trading securities, enhances market liquidity, and tries to streamline the securities exchange process by standardizing registration, clearance and settlement procedures.

Measure Year Index/Ranking

TI Corruption Index 2011 2.9 (112/182)

Heritage Economic Freedom

2012 57.9 (100/179)

World Bank Doing Business

2012 110/183

MCC Gov’t Effectiveness

2012 0.04 (55%)

MCC Rule of Law 2012 0.36 (69%)

MCC Control of Corruption

2012 -0.07 (45%)

MCC Fiscal Policy 2012 -7.7 (12%)

MCC Trade Policy 2012 74.0 (48%)

MCC Regulatory Quality 2012 0.36 (70%)82 | P a g e



MCC Business Start Up 2012 0.991 (93%)

MCC Land Rights Access

2012 0.927 (91%)

MCC Natural Resource Mgmt

2012 87.21 (76%)

Conversion and Transfer Policies

Following the revolution, the Central Bank of Egypt issued restrictions on transfers of cash out of Egypt. Foreign companies are reportedly allowed to transfer up to $100,000 out of Egypt without additional documentation. Transfers above $100,000 are allowed only for legitimate business purposes and require extensive original documentation and approval from the Central Bank of Egypt. Egyptian and foreign individuals must provide documentation for all foreign transfers. Foreign investors say that the restrictions on capital transfer have resulted in delays of several weeks to several months and have significantly impacted business operations. Egyptian law allows individuals and businesses to conduct all normal foreign exchange transactions, including accepting deposits, and opening letters of credit. Foreign currency is available at banks and foreign exchange bureaus.

The 1992 U.S.-Egypt Bilateral Investment Treaty provides for free transfer of dividends, royalties, compensation for expropriation, payments arising out of an investment dispute, contract payments, and proceeds from sales. Transfers are to be made in a "freely convertible currency at the prevailing market rate of exchange on the date of transfer with respect to spot transactions in the currency to be transferred."

The Investment Incentives Law stipulates that non-Egyptian employees hired by projects established under the law are entitled to transfer their earnings abroad. Conversion and transfer of royalty payments are permitted when a patent, trademark, or other licensing




agreement has been approved under the Investment Incentives Law.

Banking Law 88 of 2003 regulates the repatriation of profits and capital. The government has repeatedly emphasized its commitment to maintaining the profit repatriation system to encourage foreign investment in Egypt. The current system for profit repatriation by foreign firms requires sub-custodian banks to open foreign and local currency accounts for foreign investors (global custodians), which are exclusively maintained for stock exchange transactions. The two accounts serve as a channel through which foreign investors process their sales, purchases, dividend collections, and profit repatriation transactions using the bank’s posted daily exchange rates. The system is designed to allow for settlement of transactions in less than two days.

Expropriation and Compensation

The Investment Incentives Law provides guarantees against nationalization or confiscation of investment projects under the law's domain. The law also provides guarantees against seizure requisition, blocking, and placing of assets under custody or sequestration. It also offers guarantees against full or partial expropriation of real estate and investment project property. The U.S.-Egypt Bilateral Investment Treaty also provides protection against expropriation. Private firms are able to take cases of expropriation to court, but the judicial system is very slow and can take several years to resolve a case.

On September 21, 2011, the Commercial Division of the Egyptian Administrative Court ruled that the privatization of three formerly public companies – Shebin El-Kom Textile Company, Tanta Linen Company, and El Nasr Steam Boilers Company – was illegal. The ruling requires the purchasers to return ownership of the companies and their assets to the Government of Egypt in exchange for the original purchase price as well as the rehiring of all employees terminated since the sale. The ruling comes in the wake of a similar ruling in June 2011 invalidating the 2006 privatization of state-owned department store Omar Effendi.




A legal challenge is currently pending against the 2006 privatization of the Bank of Alexandria (now AlexBank). The complaint was brought by a citizens’ group that alleges the auction process for the formerly state-owned bank was non-transparent and that Egypt did not receive fair compensation for the sale. Thirteen financial institutions competed for the tender in 2006, with Intesa San Paolo Bank of Italy eventually winning an 80% stake in the bank at a cost of $1.6 billion. The complaint seeks to unwind the sale and return AlexBank to state control.

Dispute Settlement

The U.S. Embassy recommends that U.S. companies put clauses specifying binding international arbitration of disputes in their commercial agreements. Egypt acceded to the International Convention for the Settlement of Investment Disputes in 1971 and is a member of the International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), which provides a framework for arbitration of investment disputes between the government and foreign investors from another member state, provided that the parties agree to such arbitration. Without prejudice to Egyptian courts, the Investment Incentives Law recognizes the right of investors to settle disputes within the framework of bilateral agreements, the ICSID or through arbitration before the Regional Center for International Commercial Arbitration in Cairo, which applies the rules of the United Nations Commissions on International Trade Law.

The U.S.-Egypt Bilateral Investment Treaty allows an investor to take a dispute directly to binding third-party arbitration. The Egyptian courts generally endorse international arbitration clauses in commercial contracts. For example, the Court of Cassation has, on a number of occasions, confirmed the validity of arbitration clauses included in contracts between Egyptian and foreign parties.

Egypt adheres to the 1958 New York Convention on the Enforcement of Arbitral Awards; the 1965 Washington Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes between States and the Nationals




of Other States; and the 1974 Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes between the Arab States and Nationals of Other States. An award issued pursuant to arbitration that took place outside Egypt may be enforced in Egypt if it is either covered by one of the international conventions to which Egypt is party or it satisfies the conditions set out in Egypt's Dispute Settlement Law 27 of 1994, which provides for the arbitration of domestic and international commercial disputes and limited challenges of arbitration awards in the Egyptian judicial system. The Dispute Settlement Law was amended in 1997 to include disputes between public enterprises and the private sector.

The Egyptian judicial system functions extremely slowly, and cases can remain in the system for several years. Arbitral awards are made in the original currency of the transaction, via the competent court in Egypt, usually the Cairo Court of Appeals. A special order is required to challenge an arbitration award in an Egyptian court. To enforce judgments of foreign courts in Egypt, the party seeking to enforce the judgment must obtain an exequatur. To apply for an exequatur, the normal procedures for initiating a lawsuit in Egypt must be satisfied. Moreover, several other conditions must be satisfied, including ensuring reciprocity between the Egyptian and foreign country's courts and verifying the competence of the court rendering the judgment.

Egypt does not have a bankruptcy law per se, but Commercial Law 17 of 1999 includes a chapter on bankruptcy. The terms of the bankruptcy chapter are silent or ambiguous on several key issues that are crucial to the reduction of settlement risks. The Ministry of Industry and Foreign Trade has identified the lack of a functioning bankruptcy code as a significant weakness for investment in Egypt and has indicated in public statements that efforts are underway to initiate new bankruptcy legislation.

Performance Requirements and Incentives




No performance requirements are specified in the Investment Incentives Law. The ability to fulfill local content requirements is no longer a prerequisite for approval to set up assembly projects, but in most cases assembly industries still must meet a minimum local content requirement in order to benefit from customs tariff reductions on imported industrial inputs.

Article 6 of Decree 420/2000 allows for the reduction of customs tariffs on intermediate goods if the final product has a certain percentage of input from local manufacturers, beginning at 30% local content. As the percentage of local content rises, so does the tariff reduction. In certain cases, a Minister can grant tariff reductions of up to 40% in advance to certain companies without waiting to reach a corresponding percentage of local content. In 2010, Egypt revised its export rebate system to provide exporters with additional subsidies if they used a greater portion of local raw materials. See the section "Import and Export Policies" for more details on the export rebate system.

Manufacturers wishing to export under trade agreements between Egypt and other countries must fulfill certificate of origin and local content requirements contained therein. Oil and gas exploration concessions, which do not fall under the Investment Incentives Law, do have performance standards, which are specified in each individual agreement and which generally include the drilling of a specific number of wells in each phase of the exploration period stipulated in the agreement.

There are no formal geographical restrictions on investments. However, due to congestion in Cairo, the government generally denies approval for investments in manufacturing facilities in Cairo, unless a compelling economic rationale exists. The government offers incentives to move existing manufacturing facilities out of Cairo. Upon request, government officials assist investors in locating a site for a project, often in one of the new industrial sites located outside Cairo and sometimes provide necessary infrastructure.




In addition to the new industrial sites outside Cairo, the government has targeted Upper Egypt for development by private investors. Land in industrial zones in Upper Egypt is offered free of charge. The government also provides hookups to infrastructure (water, sewer, electricity, and gas) and transfers land title to the developer three years after project startup. As noted above, approval by the security services is generally required for investments in the Sinai Peninsula.

In July 2007, MOI finalized procedures for granting usufruct rights (use by an investor of a plot of land for a certain period of time to establish a project and profit from it, after which both project and land are given to public ownership) in the Sinai, with the aim of boosting investment levels in the region. The procedures include facilitation of real estate registration; enabling use of usufruct rights as a guarantee for loans; and enabling banks to register pledges on real estate and foreclose in cases of non-payment.

Import and Export Policies: In 2004, government cut tariffs sharply and simplified the customs regime to stimulate trade and economic development. The government removed GATT-inconsistent services fees and import surcharges, dismantled tariff inconsistencies, including sharp escalation and reverse progression on tariff rates, and rationalized national sub-headings above the six-digit level of the Harmonized System (HS). As a result of the reforms since 2004, Egypt's number of ad valorem tariff rates was reduced from 27 to 5 and the average weighted tariff rate has fallen from 14.6 percent to 5.5 percent.

In 2005, new import and export regulations were issued, which reduced the number of imported goods subject to inspection by the General Organization for Export and Import Control (GOEIC) and permitted importers to provide their own certificates of health and safety conformity from any internationally accredited laboratory inside or outside of Egypt. The new regulations also transferred responsibility for issuing and reviewing certificates of origin from GOEIC to the Egyptian Customs Authority.




In February 2009, a presidential decree amended the customs tariff schedule for 250 items, lowering import duties on many items and removing entirely duties on some raw materials and capital and intermediate goods such as inputs for spinning and weaving products.

Despite the government's sweeping customs and tariff reform and easing of import restrictions, significant problems remain. Egypt adopted the WTO customs valuation system in 2001. Though government officials report that Egypt has almost fully implemented the system, importers face a confusing mix of new invoice-based and old reference price-based valuations depending on the type of imports. Acknowledging these problems, the Ministry of Finance (MOF) has committed to a comprehensive reform of Egypt's customs administration and is working in concert with USAID, which funded a comprehensive six-year program to support reform efforts. A new customs law was drafted and sent to the Minister of Finance and was scheduled to be sent to the People’s Assembly in early 2010. However, the law has not yet been submitted to the Egyptian Parliament.

A number of non-tariff barriers or bans continue in force to protect local producers. Mandatory quality-control standards make importing certain products into the Egyptian market difficult. Over 130 categories of imports are still subject to mandatory quality-control inspections, including foodstuffs, appliances, electrical products, and auto parts. Although the government says that the quality control standards are applied equally to imports and domestically produced goods, in practice, imports are scrutinized more rigorously by multiple government agencies. Enforcement remains inconsistent.

Egypt banned the importation of cotton in October 2011 due to problems in marketing the domestic cotton crop. While the ban was somewhat relaxed in November 2011 to permit imports by companies located in free zones, the ban has caused problems for many textile companies which rely on imports of short/medium staple cotton for their production and cannot use Egyptian long staple cotton.




Many U.S. agricultural products also face burdensome import licensing and inspection requirements. Although a ban on whole poultry was lifted in 1997, imported poultry parts are still prohibited, ostensibly over concerns that they may not meet halal (religious) standards, despite certification by U.S. Islamic Centers. Health food products such as low-calorie foods, diet pills, and vitamins also face informal barriers to trade. These products must obtain a special registration from the National Nutrition Institute of the Ministry of Health, which can take months to process. Products with domestic substitutes have experienced substantial delays, some as many as six months to one year. On a positive note for investors in the textile industry, Egypt recently approved the importation of U.S. upland cotton, which is highly valued by spinners and weavers around the world.

Phytosanitary standards applied to wheat shipments are sometimes not science-based. Egypt requires that wheat shipments be “free” of Ambrosia (ragweed) seeds, a standard that is not technically feasible to meet, as most major wheat exporters, including the United States, has one or more varieties of Ambrosia. No other country importing U.S. wheat imposes a requirement of Ambrosia free or zero tolerance. Currently, the GOE is permitting wheat cargos to be discharged and cleaned if Ambrosia is detected. However, exporters and importers face a high degree of risk that a cargo could be rejected because of this restriction.

The GOE also performs quality-based inspections of imported grain and oilseeds and will reject shipments if they do not meet these standards. In the international grain trade, quality is graded at origin and, generally, quality at destination is not a matter for government intervention, but rather a matter for negotiation between buyer and seller or referral to the insurance carrier. The potential for rejection of a cargo adds risk and cost to the transaction.

Other food imports are sometimes subject to standards that appear to lack technical and scientific justification. For example, the Ministry of Health has an overly broad definition of foods for special dietary use, defined narrowly in the U.S. (under 21 CFR 105.3) for meeting the




needs of a select group of people who have a specified disease or condition (infant formula or labeled medical foods), but which in Egypt includes products labeled "enriched" or "high in" vitamins or minerals. As a result, a large variety of generally marketable food products, increasingly popular in the United States and other countries, must be registered and tested in Egypt before they can be imported. In the United States, most of these products are simply regulated as foods, subject to the regular safety standards; the FDA requires only that such a label claim be truthful and sets certain guidelines for what is considered “high in” and that any additives used to “enrich” vitamin or mineral content are approved. Many of the additives tested by Egypt are considered in the United States as GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe; listed in 21 CFR 182 and 184).

Shelf-life standards also act as an indirect trade barrier. Egypt sets the shelf life of many imported products using non-science-based standards that do not recognize quality, safety, and technological differences between producers. By government decree, imports (mainly food products) must have 50 percent or more of their shelf life remaining. The government is reviewing Egypt's shelf life standards to make them more science-based and WTO-consistent.

The import inspection process remains confusing, despite the designation of the GOEIC as the coordinator for all import inspections. The Ministries of Health and Agriculture maintain their own inspection units and procedures. Imported refrigerated containers of foodstuffs typically take 25 days to clear customs. While two-month delays were common in the past, overall customs clearance times are improving, and import inspections now typically take three to four weeks.

Ministerial Decree 619 of 1998 required a certification of origin for imports and stipulated that consumer goods (durable and non-durable) be shipped directly from the country of origin. The decree was amended in late 1999 to ease requirements for the certificate of origin and allow shipment of imported consumer goods from the main branches of the producing company and its distribution centers.




Company invoices noting the country of origin and bearing the endorsement of an Egyptian overseas commercial office can now be used as certificates of origin. Ministerial Decrees 577 and 580 of 1999 require cars to be imported in the year of production. In 2000, the decrees were amended adding one year after the year of production to the period during which passenger vehicles can be imported.

The duty drawback system requires full custom duties to be paid on semi-finished imports. There is a one-year time limit for re-exporting these imports as part of a final product in order to claim a full rebate of the duties and taxes paid. Export Promotion Law 155 of 2002 sought to improve the duty drawback and temporary admission systems for exporters by establishing a central unit under the joint supervision of the Ministries of Finance and Industry and Foreign Trade. The ministries jointly inaugurated the first upgraded temporary-admissions unit at the Port of Alexandria in 2002. With assistance from USAID, the ministries opened three more units in Suez, Port Said, and Damietta.

Export Promotion Law 155 also established an "Export Development Fund," to promote Egyptian exports and increase their presence in foreign markets. The Fund supports a number of sectors, mainly textiles, ready-made garments, and food industries, with an export rebate of up to 10% of the total added value of the exported goods. The Fund also subsidizes some shipping costs and start-up costs of export-oriented businesses. In 2010, the GOE revised its export subsidy scheme to pay higher rebates to exporters who use larger percentages of local raw materials in their goods, and also temporarily increased by 50% the export subsidies paid to the ready-made garment and textile sectors. Aside from the subsidies provided by the Export Development Fund, the government of Egypt rarely provides additional agricultural export subsidies and does not impose export performance requirements.

The Ministry of Industry and Foreign Trade imposed tight limits on rice exports in March 2008, citing the need to ensure domestic supply. These limits on rice exports remain in effect.




In 2010, the Central Bank relaxed a requirement of 100 percent foreign exchange cover for Letters of Credit issued for the purchase of goods imported for resale, reducing the requirement to 50 percent. Also in 2010, the Central Bank suspended the foreign exchange cover requirement on meat, poultry, and sugar imports in response to high levels of food price inflation.

Right to Private Ownership and Establishment

By law, foreign and domestic private firms have the right to establish and own business enterprises and engage in all forms of remunerative activity, except for the restrictions on foreign business noted previously. Private enterprises may freely establish, acquire and dispose of interests in business enterprises. In practice, private firms sometimes find themselves at a disadvantage when competing for resources with state-owned firms. For example, state-owned firms often have easier access to bank credit from the state-dominated banking system than do private firms, whether domestic or foreign. Lack of access to credit is one of the major complaints of the business community in Egypt as interest rates are high, and banks have restrictive policies on lending. Lack of risk assessment capacity in the banking sector is also a factor in overly-cautious lending policies. Also, some companies have experienced difficulties in dissolving companies.

Protection of Property Rights

The Egyptian legal system provides protection for real and personal property, but laws on real estate ownership are complex and titles to real property may be difficult to establish and trace. Reforms in 2007 simplified the registration process for residential construction in new urban areas built on the outskirts of Cairo and Alexandria.

A National Title Registration Program was introduced by the Ministry of State for Administrative Development and implemented in nine areas within Cairo. This program was intended to simplify property registration and facilitate easier mortgage financing. Real estate registration fees, long considered a major impediment to development of the real estate sector, were capped in May 2006 at no more than




LE 2000 (US$345), irrespective of the property value. The government also enacted an overhauled real estate tax system, which has been put on hold indefinitely following the revolution.

There is an extensive rent control system for older residential and commercial real estate property resulting in some apartment rents as low as US$10 per month. However, these rent controls do not apply to real estate put into service in recent years. Foreigners are limited to ownership of two residences in Egypt and specific procedures are required for purchasing real estate in certain geographical areas.

The mortgage market is still undeveloped in Egypt. Real Estate Finance Law 148 of 2001 authorized both banks and non-bank mortgage companies to issue mortgages. The law provides procedures for foreclosure on property of defaulting debtors, and amendments passed in 2004 allow for the issuance of mortgage-backed securities. According to the regulations, banks can offer financing in foreign currency of up to 65% of the value of a property. .

For information on protecting your Intellectual Property Rights, see Chapter 3 Protecting Your Intellectual Property.

Transparency of the Regulatory System

The Egyptian government has made efforts to improve the transparency of government policy. The process has proven difficult and has faced strong resistance from entrenched bureaucratic interests. Significant obstacles continue to hinder private sector investment, including the often-arbitrary imposition of bureaucratic impediments and the length of time needed to resolve them. It remains to be seen how the new parliament and president will address transparency issues.

Law 89 of 1998 amended the Tenders and Bidding Law 9 of 1983 to improve equality and transparency in government procurement. Key




provisions of the law include: a prohibition on reopening negotiations after final bids have been received; more transparency in the criteria for bid acceptance and rejection; equality among bidders, contractors, and government agencies; more weight given to the technical aspects of a tender or bid; protection of contractor rights; reduction of insurance fees; and immediate return of deposits once the government announces bid or tender results.

In 2005, parliament passed the Law on Protection of Competition and Prohibition of Monopolistic Practices. A new agency, the Egyptian Competition Authority, began operating in 2006 to implement the law. The MOI also issued corporate governance guidelines as Ministerial Decree No. 332 in 2005. The non-binding guidelines – formulated along the lines of OECD principles – apply to corporations and limited liability companies as well as brokerages. In 2006, MOI issued corporate governance guidelines for public sector companies.

Accounting standards in government entities are still not fully consistent with international norms, although efforts were underway to bring standards into conformity with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). The MOI issued a directive in 2006 with new accounting standards for all companies listed on the Egyptian stock exchange, including public entities. The new standards, which came into effect in 2007, are close, but not identical to IFRS.Egyptian law does not require that proposed legislation be published prior to consideration by the parliament. In practice, however, proposed legislation is occasionally circulated among concerned parties such as business associations and labor unions. Responsiveness on the part of legislators to feedback received from concerned parties is limited. After approval by parliament, new laws are published in the Official Gazette.

Efficient Capital Markets and Portfolio Investment

The government has taken steps to streamline capital markets and overcome years of stagnation in the banking system. The Egyptian Exchange (EGX) is Egypt’s registered securities exchange. Two




hundred fourteen companies are listed on the EGX, with a market capitalization of LE 345 billion. Stock ownership is open to foreign and domestic individuals and entities. The government of Egypt issues dollar-denominated and Egyptian pound-denominated debt instruments. Ownership is open to foreign and domestic individuals and entities.

The Capital Market Law 95 of 1992, along with the Banking Law of 2003, constitutes the primary regulatory framework for the financial sector. The law grants foreigners full access to capital markets, and authorizes establishment of Egyptian and foreign companies to provide underwriting of subscriptions, brokerage services, securities and mutual funds management, clearance and settlement of security transactions, and venture capital activities. The law also authorizes the issuance of corporate bonds and bearer shares, and makes income from most stocks and bonds non-taxable (compared to 20% tax rate on interest from Egyptian treasury bills). The law specifies mechanisms for arbitration and legal dispute resolution and prohibits unfair market practices. Law No 10/2009 created the Egyptian Financial Supervisory Authority (EFSA) and brought the regulation of all non-banking financial services under its authority).

The Central Securities Depository and Registration Law and its executive regulations, issued in 2000, eased registration and deposit of securities. Settlement of transactions now takes one day for treasury bonds, two days for dematerialized issues, four days for materialized issues and same day for 62 active stocks that are not bound by the 5 percent daily price movement ceiling. Although Egyptian law and regulations allow companies to adopt bylaws limiting or prohibiting foreign ownership of shares, only four companies listed on the stock exchange have such restrictions. A significant number of the companies listed on the exchange are family-owned or dominated conglomerates, and free trading of shares in many of these ventures, while increasing, remains limited. However, stocks are de-listed from the exchange if not traded for six months.




In 2002, the then Minister of Foreign Trade added an additional chapter to the executive regulations of the Capital Market Law to allow margin trading to increase liquidity and trading in the market through brokerage firms and financially solvent licensed companies. In April 2003, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission included the Egyptian Exchange in its list of accredited stock exchanges, allowing U.S. financial institutions to invest in the Egyptian stock market without undertaking the cumbersome procedures previously required. In May 2006, the CMA issued Decree No. 50 for 2006, organizing online trading on the CASE. The decree allows brokerage companies to receive requests for buying/selling of shares by clients via the Internet. The decree also mandates infrastructure requirements, mainly web security provisions, which brokerage firms must meet in order to provide online services. To date, 103 companies have obtained online trading licenses.

Leasing Law 95 of 1995 allows for the leasing of capital assets and real estate and was designed to reduce the high start-up costs faced by new investors. Notably, the law specifically allowed for the purchase of real estate assets through leasing mechanisms. The Leasing Law was amended in 2001 to make leasing more attractive for investors by exempting financial leasing activities from sales taxes and fees; specifying financial standards that leasing companies must adhere to; increasing the control, organization and efficiency of the leasing activities; and incorporating clear guarantees for the parties involved.

Competition from State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs)

State Owned Enterprises compete directly with private companies in several sectors of the Egyptian economy. They are structured as individual companies controlled by boards of directors and grouped under government holding companies that are arranged by industry – Spinning & Weaving; Metallurgical Industries; Chemical Industries; Pharmaceuticals; Food Industries; Building & Construction; Tourism, Hotels & Cinema; Maritime & Inland Transport; and Insurance. The holding companies are headed by boards of directors appointed by the




Prime Minister with input from the relevant Minister. According to Public Sector Law 203 of 1991, SOEs should not receive preferential treatment from the government, nor should they be accorded any exemption from legal requirements applicable to private companies. In addition to SOEs, 40% of the banking sector’s assets are controlled by three state-owned banks (Banque Misr, Banque du Caire, National Bank of Egypt). Privatization of SOEs and state-owned banks accelerated under an economic reform program that started in 2004, but the privatization program stalled in 2008.

Corporate Social Responsibility

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs have grown in popularity in Egypt over the last ten years. However, participation in CSR within Egypt remains limited to multinational and larger domestic companies. Education is the most popular sector for CSR investment, although, environmental programs are garnering greater participation.

Political Violence

In January and February 2011, Egypt witnessed nationwide demonstrations and clashes between protestors and police, which eventually brought an end to the Mubarak-led government. Since then, there have sporadic marches and demonstrations that occasionally degenerate into violence, in some instances resulting in deaths, injuries, and extensive property damage. Although police have gradually returned to the streets, they do not appear to have a level of operational effectiveness necessary to control crowds or deter criminal activity.

Corruption

Corruption is pervasive at all levels of Egyptian society, and U.S. investors have reported requests for bribes from Egyptian government officials. Giving and accepting bribes are criminal acts in Egypt, but the government has not consistently enforced corruption laws, and impunity has become a substantial problem.




Two agencies enforce corruption laws against government employees – the Administrative Control Authority (ACA) under the authority of the Cabinet of Ministers and the Illicit Gain Office under the authority of the Public Funds Prosecution of the Ministry of Interior. Private individuals and companies can be prosecuted under commercial and/or civil laws. Commercial cases are subject to the Commercial Law and the Dispute Settlement Law. The district attorney’s office and the civil courts adjudicate civil cases. The ACA may intervene when corruption occurs in the private sector if public money and/or public interests are involved. Penalties for a corruption conviction include pecuniary fines and/or imprisonment. Enforcement of corruption laws does not appear to be disproportionally directed against foreigners, but prosecutions do appear to be politically motivated.

Egypt is a signatory to the UN Convention Against Corruption, but has not signed the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery or any other regional anti-corruption convention. Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index ranked Egypt 98 out of 178 countries surveyed in its 2010 survey.

Bilateral Investment Agreements

Egypt has signed investment agreements with over 40 other countries, including Armenia, Belgium, China, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, Libya, Luxembourg, Morocco, the Netherlands, Romania, Singapore, Sudan, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Tunisia, the United Kingdom and the U.S. The U.S-Egypt Bilateral Investment Treaty provides for fair, equitable, and nondiscriminatory treatment for investors of both nations. The treaty includes provisions for international legal standards on expropriation and compensation; free financial transfers; and procedures for the settlement of investment disputes, including international arbitration.

In addition to specific investment agreements, Egypt is also a signatory to a wide variety of agreements covering trade issues. Egypt




joined the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) in June 1998. In July 1999, Egypt and the United States signed a Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA), a step toward creating freer trade and increasing investment flows between the U.S. and Egypt. In June 2001, Egypt signed an Association Agreement with the European Union (EU). Egypt’s parliament ratified the agreement in March 2003, and it entered into force on June 1, 2004. The agreement provides for immediate duty free access of Egyptian products into EU markets, while duty free access for EU products will be phased in over a twelve-year period. In 2010, Egypt and the EU completed an agricultural annex to their FTA, liberalizing trade in over 90% of agricultural goods.

Egypt is also a member of the General Arab Free Trade Agreement (GAFTA), and a member of the Agadir Agreement with Jordan, Morocco, and Tunisia, which relaxes rules of origin requirements on products jointly manufactured by the countries for export to Europe. Egypt also has an FTA with Turkey, and in 2010 signed an FTA with the Mercosur bloc of Latin American nations.

In 2004, Egypt and Israel signed an agreement to take advantage of the U.S. government Qualifying Industrial Zone (QIZ) program. The purpose of the QIZ program is to promote stronger ties between the region's peace partners by granting duty-free access to goods produced in QIZs in Egypt and Jordan using a specified percentage of Israeli input. Under the QIZ agreement, the US waives duties on imports from Egypt if the value includes 10.5% Israeli content.

The industrial areas currently included in the QIZ program are Alexandria, areas in Greater Cairo such as Sixth of October, Tenth of Ramadan, Fifteenth of May, South of Giza, Shobra El-Khema, Nasr City and Obour, areas in the Delta governorates such as Dakahleya, Damietta, Monofeya and Gharbeya, and areas in the Suez Canal such as Suez, Ismailia, and Port Said. The Upper Egyptian governorates of Minya and Beni Suef were designated as QIZs in January 2009, though the program has not yet been implemented in the two




governorates. Egyptian exports to the U.S., ready-made garments in particular, have risen rapidly since the QIZ program was introduced in December 2004. The value of the Egyptian QIZ exports to the U.S. amounted to $858 million in 2010, approximately 38% of Egypt's total exports to the U.S.

OPIC and Other Investment Insurance Programs

In July 1999, Egypt and the U.S. signed an updated investment agreement to facilitate the U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC)'s provision of political risk insurance for U.S. private investment as well as for bid, performance, and advance payments, and customs bonds and guarantees issued on behalf of U.S. suppliers and contractors in Egypt. OPIC has two active political risk insurance projects in Egypt related to oil and gas exploration by the Apache Corporation. In addition, OPIC is providing up to $125 million in financing to private equity fund Citadel Capital to assist with Egyptian investments in logistics and agriculture. OPIC has also received board approval for a $250 million loan guaranty facility for small and medium enterprises in Egypt.

Egypt is also a member of the World Bank's Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA).

Labor

Egypt's labor force has grown steadily in recent years, with upwards of 700,000 new entrants into the labor market each year. Official statistics put the labor force at 26.7 million. Unemployment officially stood at 11.9 percent at the end of 2011, though experts estimate the real level of unemployment, particularly among youth, to be much higher.

There is universal agreement that the government bureaucracy and public sector enterprise are substantially over-staffed compared to private sector business. Skilled labor in most professions is in short




supply, despite high numbers of university graduates in those fields. Foreign companies frequently pay internationally competitive salaries to attract workers with valuable skills. Millions of Egyptians continue to seek employment abroad on both a temporary and permanent basis.

The Unified Labor Law (Law 12 of 2003) provides comprehensive guidelines on labor relations, including hiring, working hours, termination of employees, training, health, and safety. The law grants a qualified right for employees to strike, as well as rules and guidelines governing mediation, arbitration, and collective bargaining between employees and employers. Non-discrimination clauses are also included, and the law complies with labor-related International Labor Organization (ILO) conventions regulating the employment and training of women and eligible children (Egypt ratified ILO Convention 182 on Combating the Worst Forms of Child Labor in April 2002). The law also created a national committee to formulate general labor policies and the National Wage Council, which discusses wage-related issues and national minimum-wage policy.

Under the Unified Labor law, workers may join trade unions but are not required to do so. A trade union or workers’ committee may be formed if 50 employees in an entity express a desire to organize. All trade unions are required by law to belong to the Egyptian Trade Union Federation. Though the law remains in place, in practice employees may form independent worker organizations at the factory, governorate, and national level. In March 2011, the Minister of Manpower and Migration issued a decree recognizing complete freedom of association. The Minister decided that aspects of the Unified Labor Law violated, and were trumped by, Egypt’s ILO and UNHRC commitments. Since March 2011 the Ministry has registered scores of independent trade unions without interference, while hundreds more have formed but not yet registered. The government has drafted a Freedom of Association Law, but not yet passed the legislation. Employers complain that the incongruence between the Unified Labor Law on the one hand, and the ministerial decree and




practice on the other, causes uncertainty when dealing with workers’ representatives. The ILO's Committee of Experts recognized Egypt’s declaration on freedom of association as a positive step and emphasized that a law codifying these changes should be enacted as soon as possible.,.

Formally, workers in Egypt have the right to strike peacefully, provided a general trade union organizes the strike in defense of vocational, economic, and social interests and announces it at least ten days in advance. Strikers by law must also notify the employer and concerned administrative officials of the reasons and time frame of the strike. The law prohibits strikes in strategic or vital establishments in which the interruption of work could result in disturbing national security or basic services provided to citizens. In practice, however, workers strike regularly in all sectors without following these procedures. The number of strikes increased significantly in 2011. The ILO's Committee of Experts has criticized a law mandating that only government-affiliated General Trade Unions may organize strikes and that workers must notify employers in advance of strike actions.

Collective negotiation is allowed between trade union organizations and private sector employers or their organizations when attempting to improve labor terms, conditions, and employment provisions; cooperating between labor parties to achieve social development for workers of an establishment; and settling disputes between workers and employers. Agreements reached through negotiations are recorded in collective agreements regulated by the Unified Labor law. Collective bargaining is technically not permitted in the government and public sectors, though it exists in practice. The government often intervenes to limit or manage collective bargaining negotiations in all sectors.

The Ministry of Manpower and Migration sets worker health and safety standards, which also apply in public and private free zones




and the Special Economic Zones (see below). Enforcement and inspection, however, are uneven. The Unified Labor Law prohibits employers from maintaining hazardous working conditions, and workers have the right to remove themselves from hazardous conditions without risking loss of employment.

Egyptian labor laws allow employers to close or downsize for economic reasons. The government, however, has taken steps to halt downsizing in specific cases. The unemployment insurance law, also known as the Emergency Subsidy Fund Law No. 156 of 2002, sets a fund to compensate employees whose wages are suspended due to partial or complete closure of their firm or due to its downsizing. The Fund allocates financial resources that will come from a 1 percent deduction from the base salaries of public and private sector employees.

According to foreign investors, certain aspects of Egypt's labor policies are significant business impediments, particularly the difficulty of dismissing employees. The Unified Labor Law is somewhat more flexible in this area than the previous one, allowing employers and employees to terminate employment contracts under specific circumstances, but the process is still not easy. The privatization program in some cases also required a company's new owner to retain all workers. The government has, however, used privatization proceeds to offer early retirement and/or other separation incentive packages to workers in some privatized companies.

The Labor Law 12 of 2003 requires that foreign workers account for no more than 10 percent of the total workforce of a firm, though this requirement can be waived by the Ministry of Manpower and Migration. This law's requirements do not apply to the oil and gas industry, but most or all individual concession agreements have some sort of requirement on percentage of local employees.




In 2011 the Ministry of Manpower and Migration enacted regulations designed to restrict access for foreigners to Egyptian worker visas. Visas for unskilled workers will be phased out. For most other jobs employers may hire foreign workers on a temporary six-month basis, but must also hire two Egyptians to be trained to do the job during that period. Only jobs where it is not possible for Egyptians to acquire the requisite skills will remain open to foreign workers. In practice, it is not clear how diligently the government is enforcing these provisions.

Foreign Trade Zones/Free Ports

Public and private free zones are authorized under the Investment Incentive Law and are established by a decree from GAFI. Free zones are located within the national territory but are considered to be outside Egypt’s customs boundaries, granting firms doing business within them more freedom on transactions and exchanges. Companies producing largely for export (normally 80 percent or more of total production) may be established in free zones and operate in foreign currency. Free zones are open to investment in any sector, by foreign or domestic investors. Companies operating in free zones are exempted from customs duties, sales taxes or taxes and fees on capital assets and intermediate goods.

There are currently 10 public free zones in operation in the following locations: Alexandria, Damietta, East Port Said Port Zone, Ismalia, Koft, Media Production City, Nasr City, Port Said, Shebin el Kom, and Suez. The Port Said free zone was initially scheduled to be phased out by 2007, but the government has extended the timeline multiple times, and Port Said continues to operate as a free zone. Private free zones may also be established with a decree from GAFI but are usually limited to a single project. Priority is given to export-oriented industrial projects. There is no restriction on foreign ownership of capital in private free zones.




The Special Economic Zones (SEZ) Law 83 of 2002, allows establishment of special zones for industrial, agricultural, or service activities designed specifically with the export market in mind. The law allows firms operating in these zones to import capital equipment, raw materials, and intermediate goods duty free. Companies established in the SEZs are also exempt from sales and indirect taxes and can operate under more flexible labor regulations. The first SEZ was established in the northwest Gulf of Suez. The Gulf of Suez SEZ is concentrated in a 20 square kilometer region around the port of Ain Sokhna, and has attracted foreign investments from China.

Law No. 19 of 2007 authorized creation of investment zones, which require Prime Ministerial approval for establishment. The government regulates these zones through a board of directors, but the zones are established, built and operated by the private sector. The government does not provide any infrastructure or utilities in these zones. Investment zones enjoy the same benefits as free zones in terms of facilitation of license-issuance, ease of dealing with other agencies, etc., but are not granted the incentives and tax/custom exemptions enjoyed in free zones. Projects in investment zones pay the same tax/customs duties applied throughout Egypt. The aim of the law is to assist the private sector in diversifying its economic activities.

Foreign Direct Investment Statistics

Foreign direct investment came to a virtual standstill following the revolution. Egypt’s foreign direct investments were negative during the first quarter of calendar 2011, going up to $99 million in the second quarter and $440 million in the third quarter. Until security and stability return to the country and greater clarity is achieved in the political transition, Egypt is unlikely to see substantial investment inflows.

Measurements of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Egypt vary according to the source and the definitions employed to calculate the figure. The Ministry of Petroleum keeps statistics on investment in the oil and gas sector (which accounts for the bulk of FDI in Egypt), while




GAFI keeps statistics on all other investments. The Central Bank records figures on quarterly and annual investment flows based on financial records, for Egypt's balance of payments statistics. There are wide disparities between the three sources, and none can be considered definitive in assessing levels of foreign investment. GAFI's figures are calculated in Egyptian Pounds at the historical value and rate of exchange, with no allowance for depreciation and are cumulative starting from 1971. GAFI statistics indicated that U.S. investors had FDI in Egypt at a total of $5.8 billion for the period of 1971 - 2008 outside the oil/gas sector. The U.S. is ranked first in terms of FDI in Egypt.

Prior to the revolution, U.S. firms were active in a wide range of manufacturing industries, producing goods for the domestic and export markets. Examples of U.S. investors include American Express, AIG, American Standard, Bechtel, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Cargill, Citibank, Coca-Cola, Commercial International Bank, Energizer, ExxonMobil, Eveready, General Motors, GlaxoSmithKline, Guardian Industries, H.J. Heinz, Johnson and Johnson, Devon Energy, Microsoft, Procter and Gamble, Pfizer, PepsiCo, Pioneer, and Xerox. Leading investors from other countries include such companies as BG, ENI-AGIP, Shell, and Union Fenosa (in the oil/gas sector), Unilever, the M.A. Kharafi Group (Kuwait), and the Kingdom Development Company (Saudi Arabia).

Inflows into Egypt, $US Billions

FY2004 FY2005 FY2006 FY2007 FY2008 FY2009 FY2010 FY2011

Foreign Direct Investm

0.4 3.9 6.1 11.0 13.2 8.1 6.8 2.2




ent

Portfolio Investment

-.2 .8 2.8 -.9 -1.4 -9.2 7.9 -2.6

US FDI 0.2 2.0 4.6 4.7 6.4 3.5 1.4 1.8

Source: Central Bank of Egypt




The World Factbook: Egypt




Background:

The regularity and richness of the annual Nile River flood, coupled with semi-isolation provided by deserts to the east and west, allowed for the development of one of the world's great civilizations. A unified kingdom arose circa 3200 B.C., and a series of dynasties ruled in Egypt for the next three millennia. The last native dynasty fell to the Persians in 341 B.C., who in turn were replaced by the Greeks, Romans, and Byzantines. It was the Arabs who introduced Islam and the Arabic language in the 7th century and who ruled for the next six centuries. A local military caste, the Mamluks took control about 1250 and continued to govern after the conquest of Egypt by the Ottoman Turks in 1517. Following the completion of the Suez Canal in 1869, Egypt became an important world transportation hub, but also fell heavily into debt. Ostensibly to protect its investments, Britain seized control of Egypt's government in 1882, but nominal allegiance to the Ottoman Empire continued until 1914. Partially independent from the UK in 1922, Egypt acquired full sovereignty with the overthrow of the British-backed monarchy in 1952. The completion of the Aswan High Dam in 1971 and the resultant Lake Nasser have altered the time-honored place of the Nile River in the agriculture and ecology of Egypt. A rapidly growing population (the largest in the Arab world), limited arable land, and dependence on the Nile all continue to overtax resources and stress society. The government has struggled to meet the demands of Egypt's growing population through economic reform and massive investment in communications and physical infrastructure. Egyptian youth and opposition groups, inspired by events in Tunisia leading to overthrow of the government there, organized a "Day of Rage"




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campaign on 25 January 2011 (Police Day) to include non-violent demonstrations, marches, and labor strikes in Cairo and other cities throughout Egypt. Protester grievances focused on police brutality, state emergency laws, lack of free speech and elections, high unemployment, rising food prices, inflation, and low minimum wages. Within several days of the onset of protests, President MUBARAK addressed the nation pledging the formation of a new government, and in a second address he offered additional concessions, which failed to assuage protesters and resulted in an escalation of the number and intensity of demonstrations and clashes with police. On 11 February MUBARAK resigned and national leadership was assumed by a Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF). The SCAF dissolved the Egyptian parliament, suspended the nation's constitution, and formed a committee to recommend constitutional changes to facilitate a political transition through democratic elections. Following some delays, elections for a new parliament took place between November 2011 and January 2012. Presidential elections held in May and June witnessed the victory of Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed MURSI over former Prime Minister Ahmed SHAFIQ.

Location: Northern Africa, bordering the Mediterranean Sea, between Libya and the Gaza Strip, and the Red Sea north of Sudan, and includes the Asian Sinai Peninsula

Geographic coordinates: 27 00 N, 30 00 E

Map references: Africa

Area: total: 1,001,450 sq kmcountry comparison to the world: 30 land: 995,450 sq kmwater: 6,000 sq km

Area - comparative: slightly more than three times the size of New Mexico

Land boundaries:




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total: 2,665 kmborder countries: Gaza Strip 11 km, Israel 266 km, Libya 1,115 km, Sudan 1,273 km

Coastline: 2,450 km

Maritime claims: territorial sea: 12 nmcontiguous zone: 24 nmexclusive economic zone: 200 nmcontinental shelf: 200 m depth or to the depth of exploitation

Climate: desert; hot, dry summers with moderate winters

Terrain: vast desert plateau interrupted by Nile valley and delta

Elevation extremes: lowest point: Qattara Depression -133 mhighest point: Mount Catherine 2,629 m

Natural resources: petroleum, natural gas, iron ore, phosphates, manganese, limestone, gypsum, talc, asbestos, lead, rare earth elements, zinc

Land use: arable land: 2.92%permanent crops: 0.5%other: 96.58% (2005)

Irrigated land: 35,300 sq km (2003)

Total renewable water resources: 86.8 cu km (1997)

Freshwater withdrawal (domestic/industrial/agricultural) : total: 68.3 cu km/yr (8%/6%/86%)per capita: 923 cu m/yr (2000)














Natural hazards: periodic droughts; frequent earthquakes; flash floods; landslides; hot, driving windstorms called khamsin occur in spring; dust storms; sandstorms

Environment - current issues: agricultural land being lost to urbanization and windblown sands; increasing soil salination below Aswan High Dam; desertification; oil pollution threatening coral reefs, beaches, and marine habitats; other water pollution from agricultural pesticides, raw sewage, and industrial effluents; limited natural freshwater resources away from the Nile, which is the only perennial water source; rapid growth in population overstraining the Nile and natural resources

Environment - international agreements: party to: Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Desertification, Endangered Species, Environmental Modification, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Marine Dumping, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Tropical Timber 83, Tropical Timber 94, Wetlandssigned, but not ratified: none of the selected agreements

Geography - note: controls Sinai Peninsula, only land bridge between Africa and remainder of Eastern Hemisphere; controls Suez Canal, a sea link between Indian Ocean and Mediterranean Sea; size, and juxtaposition to Israel, establish its major role in Middle Eastern geopolitics; dependence on upstream neighbors; dominance of Nile basin issues; prone to influxes of refugees from Sudan and the Palestinian territories

Nationality: noun: Egyptian(s) adjective: Egyptian

Ethnic groups: Egyptian 99.6%, other 0.4% (2006 census)

Languages:











Arabic (official), English and French widely understood by educated classes

Religions: Muslim (mostly Sunni) 90%, Coptic 9%, other Christian 1%

Population: 83,688,164 (July 2012 est.)country comparison to the world: 15

Age structure: 0-14 years: 32.7% (male 13,725,282/female 13,112,157)15-64 years: 62.8% (male 26,187,921/female 25,353,947)65 years and over: 4.5% (male 1,669,313/female 2,031,016) (2011 est.)

Median age: total: 24.6 yearsmale: 24.3 yearsfemale: 24.9 years (2012 est.)

Population growth rate: 1.922% (2012 est.)country comparison to the world: 59

Birth rate: 24.22 births/1,000 population (2012 est.)country comparison to the world: 65

Death rate: 4.8 deaths/1,000 population (July 2012 est.)country comparison to the world: 191

Net migration rate: -0.2 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2012 est.)country comparison to the world: 122

Urbanization: urban population: 43.4% of total population (2010)rate of urbanization: 2.1% annual rate of change (2010-15 est.)

Major cities - population: 115 | P a g e













CAIRO (capital) 10.902 million; Alexandria 4.387 million (2009)

Sex ratio: at birth: 1.05 male(s)/femaleunder 15 years: 1.05 male(s)/female15-64 years: 1.03 male(s)/female65 years and over: 0.82 male(s)/femaletotal population: 1.03 male(s)/female (2011 est.)

Maternal mortality rate: 66 deaths/100,000 live births (2010)country comparison to the world: 92

Infant mortality rate: total: 24.23 deaths/1,000 live birthscountry comparison to the world: 82 male: 25.8 deaths/1,000 live birthsfemale: 22.59 deaths/1,000 live births (2012 est.)

Life expectancy at birth: total population: 72.93 yearscountry comparison to the world: 121 male: 70.33 yearsfemale: 75.66 years (2012 est.)

Total fertility rate: 2.94 children born/woman (2012 est.)country comparison to the world: 64

Health expenditures: 6.4% of GDP (2009)country comparison to the world: 96

Physicians density: 2.83 physicians/1,000 population (2009)

Hospital bed density: 1.7 beds/1,000 population (2009)

HIV/AIDS - adult prevalence rate: less than 0.1% (2009 est.)













country comparison to the world: 122

HIV/AIDS - people living with HIV/AIDS: 11,000 (2009 est.)country comparison to the world: 94

HIV/AIDS - deaths: fewer than 500 (2009 est.)country comparison to the world: 84

Major infectious diseases: degree of risk: intermediatefood or waterborne diseases: bacterial diarrhea, hepatitis A, and typhoid fevervectorborne disease: Rift Valley feverwater contact disease: schistosomiasisnote: highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza has been identified in this country; it poses a negligible risk with extremely rare cases possible among US citizens who have close contact with birds (2009)

Obesity - adult prevalence rate: 30.3% (2006)country comparison to the world: 8

Children under the age of 5 years underweight: 6.8% (2008)country comparison to the world: 74

Education expenditures: 3.8% of GDP (2008)country comparison to the world: 109

Literacy: definition: age 10 and over can read and writetotal population: 72%male: 80.3%female: 63.5% (2010 est.)

School life expectancy (primary to tertiary education):












total: 11 yearsmale: 11 yearsfemale: 11 years (2004)

Unemployment, youth ages 15-24: total: 24.8%country comparison to the world: 32 male: 17.2%female: 47.9% (2007)

Country name: conventional long form: Arab Republic of Egypt conventional short form: Egyptlocal long form: Jumhuriyat Misr al-Arabiyahlocal short form: Misrformer: United Arab Republic (with Syria)

Government type: republic

Capital: name: Cairogeographic coordinates: 30 03 N, 31 15 Etime difference: UTC+2 (7 hours ahead of Washington, DC during Standard Time)

Administrative divisions: 27 governorates (muhafazat, singular - muhafazat); Ad Daqahliyah, Al Bahr al Ahmar (Red Sea), Al Buhayrah, Al Fayyum, Al Gharbiyah, Al Iskandariyah (Alexandria), Al Isma'iliyah (Ismailia), Al Jizah (Giza), Al Minufiyah, Al Minya, Al Qahirah (Cairo), Al Qalyubiyah, Al Uqsur (Luxor), Al Wadi al Jadid (New Valley), As Suways (Suez), Ash Sharqiyah, Aswan, Asyut, Bani Suwayf, Bur Sa'id (Port Said), Dumyat (Damietta), Janub Sina' (South Sinai), Kafr ash Shaykh, Matruh, Qina, Shamal Sina' (North Sinai), Suhaj

Independence:










28 February 1922 (from UK protectorate status; the revolution that began on 23 July 1952 led to a republic being declared on 18 June 1953 and all British troops withdrawn on 18 June 1956); note - it was ca. 3200 B.C. that the Two Lands of Upper (southern) and Lower (northern) Egypt were first united politically

Constitution: provisional constitution passed by referendum 19 March 2011; adopted 30 March 2011

Legal system: mixed legal system based on Napoleonic civil law and Islamic religious law; judicial review by Supreme Court and Council of State (oversees validity of administrative decisions)

International law organization participation: accepts compulsory ICJ jurisdiction with reservations; non-party state to the ICCt

Suffrage: 18 years of age; universal and compulsory

Executive branch: chief of state: President Muhammad MURSI (since 30 June 2012); vice president (vacant)head of government: Prime Minister Hisham QANDIL (since 24 July 2012)cabinet: Prime Minister GANZOURI asked to form a new government on 27 November 2011(For more information visit the World Leaders website ) elections: presidential election (first round held on 23-24 May 2012; runoff held on 16-17 June 2012election results: percent of vote (first round) - Mohammed MURSI 24.3%, Ahmed SHAFIQ 23.3%, Hamdin SABBAHI 20.4%, Abdul Moneim Aboul FOTOUH 17.2%, Amr MOUSSA 11.1, other 3.7%; (runoff) - Mohammed MURSI 51.7%, Ahmed SHAFIQ 48.3%

Legislative branch: bicameral system consists of the Advisory Council or Majlis al-Shura (Shura Council) that traditionally functions mostly










in a consultative role (270 seats; 180 members elected by popular vote, 90 appointed by the president; members serve six-year terms; mid-term elections for half of the elected members) and the People's Assembly or Majlis al-Sha'b (508 seats; 498 members elected by popular vote, 64 seats reserved for women, 10 appointed by the president; members serve five-year terms)elections: Advisory Council - last held in June 2010 (next to be held in 2012); People's Assembly - last held in three phases (two rounds each) between November 2011 and January 2012election results: Advisory Council - percent of vote by party - Democratic Alliance for Egypt 45%, Alliance for Egypt (Islamic Bloc) 28.6%, New Wafd Party 8.5%, Egyptian Bloc 5.4%, other 2.8%;; seats by party - Democratic Alliance for Egypt 105, Alliance for Egypt (Islamic Bloc) 45, New Wafd Party 14, Egyptian Bloc 8, other 4, independents 4, presidential appointees 90; People's Assembly - percent of vote by party - Democratic Alliance for Egypt 37.5%, Alliance for Egypt (Islamic Bloc) 27.8%, New Wafd Party 9.2%, Egyptian Bloc 8.9%, Al Wasat Party 3.7%, The Revolution Continues Alliance 2.8%, Reform and Development Party 2.2%, National Party of Egypt 1.6%, Freedom Party 1.9%, Egyptian Citizen Party 0.9%, other 3.7; seats by party - Democratic Alliance of Egypt 235, Alliance for Egypt (Islamic Bloc) 123, New Wafd Party 38, Egyptian Bloc 35, Al-Wasat 10, Reform and Development Party 9, The Revolution Continues Alliance 8, National Party of Egypt 5, Egyptian Citizen Party 4, Freedom Party 4, independents 21, other 6, SCAF appointees 10note: the Supreme Court on 14 June 2012 dissolved the People's Assembly; lawsuit to dissolve the Advisory Council is pending

Judicial branch: Supreme Constitutional Court

Political parties and leaders: Al-Wasat Party; Democratic Alliance for Egypt (includes Freedom and Justice Party, Dignity Party, Socialist Labour Party, Ghad El-Thawra Party, Liberal Party, Democratic Generation Party, Egyptian Arab Socialist Party); Democratic Peace Party; Egyptian Bloc (includes Free Egyptians Party, Egyptian Social Democratic Party, National






Progressive Unionist Party); Egyptian Citizen Party; Freedom Party; Islamic Bloc (includes Al Nour, Building and Development Party, Authenticity Party); National Party of Egypt; New Wafd Party [Sayed EL-BEDAWY]; Reform and Development Party; The Revolution Continues Alliance (includes Socialist Party, Egyptian Alliance Party, Equality and Development Party, Coalition of the Youth of the Revolution)

Political pressure groups and leaders: NA

International organization participation: ABEDA, AfDB, AFESD, AMF, AU, BSEC (observer), CAEU, CICA, COMESA, D-8, EBRD, FAO, G-15, G-24, G-77, IAEA, IBRD, ICAO, ICC, ICRM, IDA, IDB, IFAD, IFC, IFRCS, IHO, ILO, IMF, IMO, IMSO, Interpol, IOC, IOM, IPU, ISO, ITSO, ITU, LAS, MIGA, MINURSO, MONUSCO, NAM, OAPEC, OAS (observer), OIC, OIF, OSCE (partner), PCA, UN, UNAMID, UNCTAD, UNESCO, UNHCR, UNIDO, UNISFA, UNMIL, UNMISS, UNOCI, UNRWA, UNWTO, UPU, WCO, WFTU, WHO, WIPO, WMO, WTO

Diplomatic representation in the US: chief of mission: Ambassador Sameh Hassan SHOUKRYchancery: 3521 International Court NW, Washington, DC 20008telephone: [1] (202) 895-5400FAX: [1] (202) 244-4319consulate(s) general: Chicago, Houston, New York, San Francisco

Diplomatic representation from the US: chief of mission: Ambassador Ann W. PATTERSONembassy: 8 Kamal El Din Salah St., Garden City, Cairomailing address: Unit 64900, Box 15, APO AE 09839-4900; 5 Tawfik Diab Street, Garden City, Cairotelephone: [20] (2) 2797-3300FAX: [20] (2) 2797-3200

Flag description: three equal horizontal bands of red (top), white, and black; the national emblem (a gold Eagle of Saladin facing the hoist side with a shield superimposed on its chest above a









scroll bearing the name of the country in Arabic) centered in the white band; the band colors derive from the Arab Liberation flag and represent oppression (black), overcome through bloody struggle (red), to be replaced by a bright future (white)note: similar to the flag of Syria, which has two green stars in the white band, Iraq, which has an Arabic inscription centered in the white band, and Yemen, which has a plain white band

National symbol(s): golden eagle

Economy - overview: Occupying the northeast corner of the African continent, Egypt is bisected by the highly fertile Nile valley, where most economic activity takes place. Egypt's economy was highly centralized during the rule of former President Gamal Abdel NASSER but opened up considerably under former Presidents Anwar EL-SADAT and Mohamed Hosni MUBARAK. Cairo from 2004 to 2008 aggressively pursued economic reforms to attract foreign investment and facilitate GDP growth. Despite the relatively high levels of economic growth in recent years, living conditions for the average Egyptian remained poor and contributed to public discontent. After unrest erupted in January 2011, the Egyptian Government drastically increased social spending to address public dissatisfaction, but political uncertainty at the same time caused economic growth to slow significantly, reducing the government's revenues. Tourism, manufacturing, and construction are among the hardest hit sectors of the Egyptian economy, and economic growth is likely to remain slow at least through 2012. The government is utilizing foreign exchange reserves to support the Egyptian pound and Egypt may seek a loan from the International Monetary Fund.

GDP (purchasing power parity): $525.6 billion (2011 est.)country comparison to the world: 27 $516.5 billion (2010 est.)$491.2 billion (2009 est.)note: data are in 2011 US dollars







GDP (official exchange rate): $235.7 billion (2011 est.)

GDP - real growth rate: 1.8% (2011 est.)country comparison to the world: 155 5.1% (2010 est.)4.7% (2009 est.)

GDP - per capita (PPP): $6,600 (2011 est.)country comparison to the world: 136 $6,600 (2010 est.)$6,400 (2009 est.)note: data are in 2011 US dollars

GDP - composition by sector: agriculture: 14.5%industry: 37.6%services: 47.6% (2011 est.)

Labor force: 27.74 million (2011 est.)country comparison to the world: 22

Labor force - by occupation: agriculture: 32%industry: 17%services: 51% (2001 est.)

Unemployment rate: 12.2% (2011 est.)country comparison to the world: 128 9% (2010 est.)

Population below poverty line: 20% (2005 est.)

Household income or consumption by percentage share: lowest 10%: 3.9%highest 10%: 27.6% (2005)













Distribution of family income - Gini index: 34.4 (2001)country comparison to the world: 89

Investment (gross fixed): 14.8% of GDP (2011 est.)country comparison to the world: 135

Budget: revenues: $44.69 billionexpenditures: $67.7 billion (2011 est.)

Taxes and other revenues: 19% of GDP (2011 est.)country comparison to the world: 172

Budget surplus (+) or deficit (-): -9.8% of GDP (2011 est.)country comparison to the world: 195

Public debt: 85.7% of GDP (2011 est.)country comparison to the world: 15 81.4% of GDP (2010 est.)note: data cover central government debt, and includes debt instruments issued (or owned) by government entities other than the treasury; the data include treasury debt held by foreign entities; the data include debt issued by subnational entities, as well as intra-governmental debt; intra-governmental debt consists of treasury borrowings from surpluses in the social funds, such as for retirement, medical care, and unemployment. Debt instruments for the social funds are sold at public auctions.

Inflation rate (consumer prices): 13.3% (2011 est.)country comparison to the world: 202 11.1% (2010 est.)

Central bank discount rate: 8.68% (31 December 2010 est.)country comparison to the world: 36 8.5% (31 December 2009 est.)












Commercial bank prime lending rate: 12% (31 December 2011 est.)country comparison to the world: 77 11.008% (31 December 2010 est.)

Stock of narrow money: $46.92 billion (31 December 2011 est.)country comparison to the world: 48 $38.5 billion (31 December 2010 est.)

Stock of broad money: $196.3 billion (31 December 2011 est.)country comparison to the world: 41 $168.3 billion (31 December 2010 est.)

Stock of domestic credit: $130.7 billion (31 December 2011 est.)country comparison to the world: 47 $141.6 billion (31 December 2010 est.)

Market value of publicly traded shares: $82.49 billion (31 December 2010)country comparison to the world: 44 $89.95 billion (31 December 2009)$85.89 billion (31 December 2008)

Agriculture - products: cotton, rice, corn, wheat, beans, fruits, vegetables; cattle, water buffalo, sheep, goats

Industries: textiles, food processing, tourism, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, hydrocarbons, construction, cement, metals, light manufactures

Industrial production growth rate: 0.5% (2011 est.)country comparison to the world: 143

Electricity - production: 123.9 billion kWh (2008 est.)country comparison to the world: 28













Electricity - consumption: 109.1 billion kWh (2008 est.)country comparison to the world: 29

Electricity - exports: 1.022 billion kWh (2008 est.)

Electricity - imports: 896 million kWh (2008 est.)

Oil - production: 662,600 bbl/day (2010 est.)country comparison to the world: 29

Oil - consumption: 740,000 bbl/day (2010 est.)country comparison to the world: 25

Oil - exports: 163,000 bbl/day (2009 est.)country comparison to the world: 57

Oil - imports: 177,200 bbl/day (2009 est.)country comparison to the world: 52

Oil - proved reserves: 4.4 billion bbl (1 January 2011 est.)country comparison to the world: 27

Natural gas - production: 62.69 billion cu m (2009 est.)country comparison to the world: 14

Natural gas - consumption: 44.37 billion cu m (2009 est.)country comparison to the world: 18

Natural gas - exports: 18.32 billion cu m (2009 est.)country comparison to the world: 13















Natural gas - imports: 0 cu m (2009 est.)country comparison to the world: 184

Natural gas - proved reserves: 2.186 trillion cu m (1 January 2011 est.)country comparison to the world: 17

Current account balance: -$8.609 billion (2011 est.)country comparison to the world: 175 -$4.435 billion (2010 est.)

Exports: $27.96 billion (2011 est.)country comparison to the world: 64 $25.02 billion (2010 est.)

Exports - commodities: crude oil and petroleum products, cotton, textiles, metal products, chemicals, processed food

Exports - partners: Italy 8.8%, Germany 5.5%, US 5.5%, India 5.2%, Saudi Arabia 5.1%, Spain 4.7%, France 4.5% (2011)

Imports: $57.41 billion (2011 est.)country comparison to the world: 50 $51.54 billion (2010 est.)

Imports - commodities: machinery and equipment, foodstuffs, chemicals, wood products, fuels

Imports - partners: China 11.5%, US 9.8%, Italy 5.6%, Germany 4.9%, Turkey 4.4%, Brazil 4.1% (2011)

Reserves of foreign exchange and gold:














$28.95 billion (31 December 2011 est.)country comparison to the world: 50 $35.79 billion (31 December 2010 est.)

Debt - external: $37.28 billion (31 December 2011 est.)country comparison to the world: 65 $35.37 billion (31 December 2010 est.)

Stock of direct foreign investment - at home: $75.7 billion (31 December 2011 est.)country comparison to the world: 45 $73.1 billion (31 December 2010 est.)

Stock of direct foreign investment - abroad: $6.148 billion (31 December 2011 est.)country comparison to the world: 59 $5.448 billion (31 December 2010 est.)

Exchange rates: Egyptian pounds (EGP) per US dollar -5.94 (2011 est.)5.6258 (2010 est.)5.545 (2009)5.4 (2008)5.67 (2007)

Fiscal year: 1 July - 30 June

Telephones - main lines in use: 9.618 million (2009)country comparison to the world: 22

Telephones - mobile cellular: 70.661 million (2009)country comparison to the world: 16

Telephone system:












general assessment: underwent extensive upgrading during 1990s; principal centers at Alexandria, Cairo, Al Mansurah, Ismailia, Suez, and Tanta are connected by coaxial cable and microwave radio relaydomestic: largest fixed-line system in the region; as of 2010 there were three mobile-cellular networks with a total of more than 70 million subscribersinternational: country code - 20; landing point for Aletar, the SEA-ME-WE-3 and SEA-ME-WE-4 submarine cable networks, Link Around the Globe (FLAG) Falcon and FLAG FEA; satellite earth stations - 4 (2 Intelsat - Atlantic Ocean and Indian Ocean, 1 Arabsat, and 1 Inmarsat); tropospheric scatter to Sudan; microwave radio relay to Israel; a participant in Medarabtel (2009)

Broadcast media: mix of state-run and private broadcast media; state-run TV operates 2 national and 6 regional terrestrial networks as well as a few satellite channels; about 20 private satellite channels and a large number of Arabic satellite channels are available via subscription; state-run radio operates about 70 stations belonging to 8 networks; 2 privately-owned radio stations operational (2008)

Internet country code: .eg

Internet hosts: 200,336 (2010)country comparison to the world: 70

Internet users: 20.136 million (2009)country comparison to the world: 21

Airports: 84 (2012)country comparison to the world: 67

Airports - with paved runways: total: 72over 3,047 m: 15










2,438 to 3,047 m: 361,524 to 2,437 m: 15under 914 m: 6 (2012)

Airports - with unpaved runways: total: 122,438 to 3,047 m: 11,524 to 2,437 m: 3914 to 1,523 m: 5under 914 m: 3 (2012)

Heliports: 6 (2012)

Pipelines: condensate 320 km; condensate/gas 13 km; gas 6,628 km; liquid petroleum gas 956 km; oil 4,332 km; oil/gas/water 3 km; refined products 895 km; water 13 km (2010)

Railways: total: 5,083 kmcountry comparison to the world: 34 standard gauge: 5,083 km 1.435-m gauge (62 km electrified) (2009)

Roadways: total: 65,050 kmcountry comparison to the world: 70 paved: 47,500 kmunpaved: 17,550 km (2009)

Waterways: 3,500 km (includes the Nile River, Lake Nasser, Alexandria-Cairo Waterway, and numerous smaller canals in Nile Delta; the Suez Canal (193.5 km including approaches) is navigable by oceangoing vessels drawing up to 17.68 m) (2011)country comparison to the world: 30

Merchant marine: total: 67country comparison to the world: 62 by type: bulk carrier 16, cargo 20, container 3,











passenger/cargo 7, petroleum tanker 12, roll on/roll off 9foreign-owned: 13 (Denmark 1, France 1, Greece 8, Jordan 2, Lebanon 1)registered in other countries: 42 (Cambodia 4, Georgia 7, Honduras 2, Liberia 3, Malta 1, Marshall Islands 1, Moldova 5, Panama 11, Saint Kitts and Nevis 1, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 2, Saudi Arabia 1, Sierra Leone 3, unknown 1) (2010)

Ports and terminals: Ayn Sukhnah, Alexandria, Damietta, El Dekheila, Port Said, Sidi Kurayr, Suez

Military branches: Army, Navy, Air Force, Air Defense Command

Military service age and obligation: 18-30 years of age for male conscript military service; service obligation 12-36 months, followed by a 9-year reserve obligation (2008)

Manpower available for military service: males age 16-49: 21,012,199females age 16-49: 20,145,021 (2010 est.)

Manpower fit for military service: males age 16-49: 18,060,543females age 16-49: 17,244,838 (2010 est.)

Manpower reaching militarily significant age annually: male: 783,405female: 748,647 (2010 est.)

Military expenditures: 3.4% of GDP (2005 est.)country comparison to the world: 35

Disputes - international: Sudan claims but Egypt de facto administers security and economic development of Halaib region north of the 22nd parallel boundary; Egypt no longer shows its administration












of the Bir Tawil trapezoid in Sudan on its maps; Gazan breaches in the security wall with Egypt in January 2008 highlight difficulties in monitoring the Sinai border; Saudi Arabia claims Egyptian-administered islands of Tiran and Sanafir

Refugees and internally displaced persons: refugees (country of origin): 7,175 (Iraq); 70,026 (Palestinian Territories); 10,035 (Sudan) (2012)

Illicit drugs: transit point for cannabis, heroin, and opium moving to Europe, Israel, and North Africa; transit stop for Nigerian drug couriers; concern as money laundering site due to lax enforcement of financial regulations






Freedom & Justice Party (FJP) Economic Platform




FJP 2011 PROGRAM ON ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

FJP 2011 Program on Economic Development

Economic development depends on the following basis:

- Realization of the Legal State (or Rule of Law), creating a climate of legislative requirements of economic reform.

- Self-reliance and taking advantage of local resources "natural, financial and human" and the adoption of a production system based on a strategy to replace imports with local produce and products.

- Achieving partnership with the private sector and the Egyptian business sector only in the implementation of the state plan.

- Reconsidering the economic role of the state, giving a greater role for the private sector without eliminating the role of the state.

- Achieving transparency, creating an accurate database and an investment climate characterized by stability and clarity of the factors governing it.

- Recognizing the sanctity of public money and respecting private




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property, unless inconsistent with the public interest.

- Gradual replacement of usurious institutions and transactions with Islamic ones.

A. The privatization program:

Approach new forms of privatization more effective and appropriate for the Egyptian economy, such as the privatization of management, partnership and raising the efficiency of management…

- Refrain from privatization of strategic industries such as medicine, food, energy etc.

- In the case of privatization, it is essential that assets should be evaluated fairly and with total transparency.

- Priority should be given to national investors to buy these assets.

- Assets sold off should be replaced by new productive assets.

B. Competition, antitrust and consumer protection:

- Amend the law to protect competition and prevent monopolistic practices by abolishing the penalty on the first amount, to encourage informants on crimes of monopoly, while toughening sanctions on the perpetrators of these crimes.

- Rejuvenate the performance and the role of Competition Management and Antitrust Authority, away from the control of businesses and businessmen.

- Revitalize the important role of law and the Consumer Protection Agency.

C. The State general budget:

Recommendations to increase the State's resources and finance of the budget

1. Collecting the real value of the land granted free to business leaders and investors, such as the lands of Madinaty and the Gulf of Suez, worth over US$800 billion.




2. Including the proceeds of special funds to the State budget, and addressing the irregularities in their accounts.

3. Delivering natural gas to households, which would save more than 16 billion Egyptian pounds a year, which now go to support imported gas.

4. Reviewing the contracts to export Egyptian natural gas, especially to Israel. This should provide additional revenue of up to US$18 billion.

5. Reviewing export prices of raw materials and mineral resources, especially oil exported to Israel, which is exported at a fixed price of 6.8 dollars per barrel since the signing of the Camp David Accords.

6. Commissioning power stations that operate with diesel and natural gas, which would save about 2 billion pounds a year.

7. Reviewing the policies of support for the shift from subsidizing certain items – which often do not reach deserving citizens – to direct support of citizens.

8. Cancelling subsidies for energy-intensive industries, and reviewing the current subsidy policy of petroleum products, which gives the rich 80% of subsidy funds.

9. Rationalizing export subsidies received by a group of leading businessmen and investors, which amount to 2.5 billion Egyptian pounds in the current budget.

10. Reviewing prices of electricity for the upper segments consumption, which exceed 500 kilowatt hours per month.

11. Collecting taxes due for payment – amounted to 5 billion Egyptian pounds last year – of which 37 billion is owed to senior financiers directorate, including 6.2 billion pounds in taxes owed by news organizations.

12. Reviewing the Income Tax Act to revitalize its role in increasing the state's resources, in addition to its role in supporting economic policies by reducing the tax rate on labor-intensive sectors of industry such as ready-made garments and textile or environment-friendly industries, such as cleaning and recycling of garbage, with rising tax rate on the renter or commercial projects and businesses, in a progressive manner with suitable preparation for investment. For example, increasing the tax on income for the communications sector by only 10%, will lead to well over




one billion Egyptian pounds extra for the state treasury.

13. Imposing a tax on capital gains, for example: trading in the stock market. Tax on the profits of stock should be 3% on the funds that come out of the market during a period of less than 6 months, 2% on the funds that come out of the market after a period of six months but less than a year, and 1% on the funds that remain in the market a year or more. A tax should also be imposed on the sale of land after ‘conversion’ (transforming land from agriculture to other purposes).

14. Restructuring real estate tax policies to support the implementation of the strategy to get out of the Nile Delta valley to the new regional growth areas.

15. Fighting tax evasion, to raise tax revenue on commercial and industrial activities, which currently does not exceed 5.5 billion Egyptian pounds, while the value of taxes on employment income amounts to 13 billion pounds.

16. Modifying and enacting the competition protection and monopoly prevention (antitrust) law.

17. Addressing the delayed implementation of the stalled 5-year plan projects, which leads to additional financial burdens as a result of overrunning planned costs.

18. Disposing of government idle stockpiles and setting controls to rationalize operations, such as coding and centralized procurement.

19. Fighting corruption, and providing efficient management of economic organizations and public companies.

20. Making best use of foreign loans and grants, and not resorting to those except after the completion of feasibility studies and necessary preparations for implementation.

21. Using financing instruments to finance State budget, which will lead to investing a large portion of idle deposits in the banking system – estimated at 500 billion Egyptian pounds – and will ease the burden of public debt.

The following should be taken into account when preparing estimates of expenditure in the general budget:

1. Reforming wage structure so that a basic salary is at least 80% of salary 138 | P a g e



total, and so the minimum wage is 1200 Egyptian pounds. This should happen gradually, over a period of five years.

2. Increasing pensions to ensure at least the minimum income for a decent life for pensioners, taking into account the increased needs of expenditure for them – on important items such as medical treatment etc.

3. Increasing the proportion spent on maintenance in Part II of the budget to the extent that ensures the maintenance of national wealth, and at the rates accepted globally, to stop the collapse of public projects.

4. Increasing support for social security pensions so the ‘share’ of each family member should be at least equivalent to one dollar per day.

5. Rationalizing petroleum products subsidies, and eliminating subsidies for energy-intensive industries and some sectors such as tourism, which gets almost 10 billion pounds in subsidies.

6. Increasing subsidies for farmers to encourage the cultivation of strategic crops such as wheat, cotton, oil crops and sugar, in order to fill the gap in the production of these crops.

7. Increasing spending on scientific research, so it can do its part in the development process.

8. Increasing public investment in essential, vital sectors such as education, health, transport and housing, in line with internationally recognized rates as a proportion of GDP.

9. Increasing spending of Part V so the armed forces is able to clear the lands of the north coast and Alameen of mines left over from World War II, enabling the use of 3 million acres in agriculture, the exploitation of natural resources therein, and the resettlement of more than one million citizens.




Egyptian Business Development Association (EBDA)




EGYPTIAN BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATION (EBDA)

Hassan Malek launched EBDA in March 2012. Acting as a channel of communication between investors and the government, EBDA enables businessmen to contribute effectively in boosting the Egyptian economy, affecting positively the lives of the broad base of people. This is achieved through attracting and encouraging investment, human development, providing projects and developmental solutions along with the participation in decision making and economic legislation and pivoting on the integration of professional performance and cultural values of the effective business environment.

Contact13 Nozha st., Ard El Golf002-01008211000 , [email protected]




http://www.ebda-egypt.org/

The Nahda (Renaissance) Project




DR. MORSI’S ELECTORAL PROGRAM – GENERAL FEATURES OF NAHDA

(RENAISSANCE) PROJECTTranslation of the main features of the Brotherhood and

the FJP’s presidential candidate Dr. Morsi’s electoral program: the Nahda Project.

It is a great honor that, thanks to the great Egyptian revolution and the honorable martyrs who sacrificed their lives for freedom, we have this opportunity to offer our noble people, our great brothers and sisters in this homeland, Dr. Morsi’s electoral platform "The Egyptian Nahda (Renaissance) Project".

This project and program is the result of a tremendous effort and hard work that lasted well over fifteen years. It aims to re-build the Egyptian person, the Egyptian society and the Egyptian nation, with an Islamic reference and a modern cultural identity for the enlightened, noble people of Egypt.

General Features of Nahda (Renaissance) Project

Nahda Project is based on empowering the people and placing their destinies in their own hands, rather than the hands of a corrupt clique or a ruthless unscrupulous bureaucracy.

The Project aims at bringing forth Egyptian individuals who feel at peace with themselves, their family, work, environment and society at large.

It also aims to build a society whose will is not defeated by that of a brutal state, corrupt regime, or foreign power – a society that occupies its rightful ranking among the world's nations, a society endowed with lofty values, science and thought in these times of information and knowledge economy and age of creativity and innovation.

The project finally aims to build a state that provides people access to education, healthcare, jobs, investment, and business building opportunities; and protects their rights and dignity within and outside the country.

The project is proposed by the Muslim Brotherhood, which strived 146 | P a g e



throughout eighty years to preserve the identity of this nation, build its strength, and entrench the values of moderation, balance and tolerance in its thought.

Indeed, the Brotherhood believes in upbringing as the methodology of change and work as a means for achievement. It is no wonder that it occupies a special place in the heart of society and is closely connected with the people; aware of their concerns, suffering, and dreams; and adopts their legitimate ambitions for a dignified life in the shade of its tolerant religious beliefs and moral values.

We present this program with firm resolve to restore the positive, pristine image of Egypt whose national, Arab, and international roles were lost under despotism, repression and corruption; whose economy failed due to the oppression and absence of justice; whose sons and daughters lost most of their freedoms upon the collapse of the rights and liberties framework in its entirety; and whose people had no hope for essential equal opportunities due to the corruption that had permeated its body.

We are determined to restore Egypt's bright image and rightful status which every honorable Egyptian citizen, dreaming of Egypt as a pioneering nation, prides on; the Egypt that was once and will sure become again the civilizational front-runner among nations.

The project favors true democracy and national belonging, with Islam as a reference; and sets out with unpartable Egyptian pride.

We are fully aware that the rejuvenation of a nation cannot be achieved by any single party, sector, group or trend no matter how powerful it is, and that the way to the desired real renaissance is our unity of ranks and determination to achieve comprehensive revitalization and to be ready and willing to bear its heavy burdens and endure its toils and privations. If political gravitations have created big or small distances between us, the pioneering Nahda (Renaissance) Project can bring us back together and unite our efforts.

Believing that he who dedicates himself to public service must clarify his visions and policies to the people, we present to you the following features of the Egyptian Nahda Project with hope that Egyptians of all segments of society will contribute to its evaluation, discussion, and formation – so that it becomes the torch that lights our path towards Modern Egypt.

The Nahda Project Team147 | P a g e



A Vision for Building the Egyptian Nation

Nahda project revolves around three principle stakeholders in Egyptian society: the state, civil society, and the private sector. With the permeation of Egyptian State control and influence in the civil and private sectors, the project establishes reformation mechanisms at the strategic and executive levels, so as to achieve the desired balance between the three stakeholders and their institutions.

The project vision is divided into three levels, according to values and objectives concerning the Egyptian individual, society, and state:

The Value and Thought level describes what Egyptians want or wish for in their daily lives, in terms of values, rights, qualities, and duties, and what they expect from Egyptian society's various institutions and principal players.

In doing so, this level relies on a vast collection of experiences, specialized and societal studies on laying down an integrated vision for the remaining levels to pursue with the aim of advancing the people civilizationally and curing society from the corruption that has afflicted it throughout the previous time periods.

The Strategy level comprises seven paths aiming to achieve the desired change through complex development plans whose roles are distributed among the stakeholders of the Egyptian nation.

The Executive level transforms these plans into specific groups of projects, reforms, and operational policies divided over three time periods, as an initial step on the road towards the Egyptian Nahda, or comprehensive rejuvenation.

The Strategic Level

With the cooperation of a number of research institutions, experts, and both Egyptian and non-Egyptian university professors, development plans were laid out for each strategic path.

Under each objective are a number of projects and executive programs, some of which have entered the implementation phase and others are still under preparation.




The following is a brief review of a few aspects of the major paths:

The Strategic Paths

* Building the political system

* Transforming into a developmental economy

* Societal empowerment

* Comprehensive human resource development

* Building a safety and security system

* Achieving regional and international leadership

* Files under focus

Building the Political System

1. From completion of the political system, all the way to the deep restructuring of the Egyptian State, transforming it from a dominant State to a State of empowered institutions with clearly marked pillars and specific powers to be respected, and not exceeded.

This process includes establishing the concept of the executive, legislative and judicial authorities complementing one another while emphasizing each authority's independent performance of its roles.

2. Building a comprehensive network system for fighting corruption, with oversight, legislative and executive powers, recognizing citizens' right to obtain government information.

3. Approving mechanisms for public monitoring of government performance to guarantee a higher level of transparency and integrity in performance.

4. Enabling all Egyptians to participate in national and political activities rather than limiting this activity to the economic and social elite of Egypt.

5. Reforming laws, legislations, and regulations governing the relationship between State institutions and mechanisms of their management to clarify the responsibilities, powers and competences of




each institution and to enhance the State's ability to facilitate government service for citizens.

6. Applying the principle of participation rather than domination in forming a coalition government representing all political players and stakeholders in Egyptian society to enable us to work together on building the future of Egypt without excluding any principal political party.

7. Activating the role of youth in the political process, beginning with lowering the qualifying age for public office and considering the factors of competence, ability, and desire to work in public service as the major qualification criteria for political jobs.

Transforming Into a Developmental Economy

1. Rapid and comprehensive transformation from an income or rentier economy to a productive or value-added economy, within the boundaries of an information and production society, through 100 national projects (each exceeding a billion dollars) guaranteeing the multiplication of Gross Domestic Product in five years at an annual growth rate of 6.5-7%.

2. Reforming the banking system to ensure it performs its principal role in supporting the national economy at different levels, while providing developmentally-appropriate monetary tools to ensure the effective participation of the banking sector in development projects and to ensure its focus on priorities.

3. Developing a program to support small and medium scale enterprises to provide a suitable environment for the advancement and sufficient activation of this economic segment by:

a. Providing necessary technical support for selecting, developing, and managing these projects.

b. Providing a training and certification program for the required management and technical cadres.

c. Providing the financial studies and tools necessary and appropriate for these projects.

d. Providing a legislative climate that guarantees small scale businesses' access to full opportunities of fair competition.




e. Creating societies and syndicates to support this segment.

f. Providing marketing opportunities and permanent exhibitions.

Societal Empowerment

1. Strengthening and enabling the civil society and institutions to safeguard democracy and preserve Egyptians' energy so that they never allow the return of State control over this sector. This would be achieved through acknowledgement of the judiciary as the governing reference for this sector.

2. Restoring the role of Endowments and direct and indirect contributions from citizens to ensure financial independence of civil society and to limit the role of the state in coordinating and supporting the different components of this sector. This also includes encouraging and supporting our people, who for long have been deprived of volunteering, through their time or money, in activities for public good.

3. Quick and intensive efforts to save the Egyptian family and encourage civil society to support the family's mission and educate family members about the present challenges and future requirements.

4. Advancing the media system, codifying the state's role in the media sector, and unleashing freedom of expression guided by genuine Egyptian values.

Comprehensive Human Development

1. Supporting a lifestyle that allows for continuous learning, multi-directional production and satisfactory consumption of basic human needs, and that realizes human dignity.

2. Structuring a comprehensive social justice system that will provide the different social classes with equal opportunities in residence, work, medical treatment, and in exercising their political rights.

3. Adopting a clear project with a time frame to overcome illiteracy and school dropout in cooperation with the state's civil and private sectors.

4. Dealing with open and masked unemployment and weak competency




of the workforce by launching qualitative and quantitative development programs for workers and by applying positive pressure on training, research and scientific institutions in Egypt to nurture development with the needed capacities to reduce the rate of unemployment by 5% every year.

5. Restructuring the Egyptian educational system with three objectives in mind:

a. Egyptian development map 2025.

b. Needs and expectations of the workforce.

c. Aspirations and concerns of youth and students.

The educational system must be completely designed around the student; thus shifting the educational strategy from the student's mere competence in knowledge acquisition to a quality and flexible educational process that provides greater opportunities for Egyptians, and meets the needs of the job market. Such a strategy requires an increase in the educational budget of the state (from 3.3% to the regional ratio of 5.2% of Gross Domestic Product).

Building the Safety and Security System

1. Achieving security and regulating its institutions and structuring the police apparatus to maintain domestic security, support Egyptians rights and protect their possessions.

2. Changing the security doctrine of principal institutions in the security sector by supporting the concept of loyalty and belonging to the Egyptian citizen and his safety and security, not to the ruling regime.

3. Increasing the competence, abilities, and strengths of the Egyptian army to protect Egyptian interests at the regional and international levels and to enable Egypt to restore its regional weight.

Achieving Regional and International Leadership

1. Restoring Egypt's leading role in the region and strengthening international treaties and agreements that will protect the interests of Egyptians internally and externally.




2. Protecting Arab national and Gulf security and pushing Arab-Islamic cooperation to new horizons that would serve the interests of Egypt.

3. Establishing relations with all international parties based on equal footing and common interests, and diversifying the international relations network with African, Asian, and Western ties to help achieve balance in the protection of Egyptian interests in the international arena.

4. Establishing the foundations of equal treatment and codes for Egyptians' rights outside Egypt and utilizing the potential of Egyptian embassies and their political relations to ease the difficulties and obstacles facing them, from protecting their rights and dignity to being safe havens for them, if needed, while away from the homeland.

Files Under Focus

1. Supporting and empowering the Egyptian woman and paving the way for her participation in society, politics, and priorities of national development. This springs from our belief that woman is equal to man in terms of status and that she complements him in his work and tasks.

a. We seek to empower the Egyptian woman by removing the hindrances that face her fruitful participation in all fields of life in a way that helps the woman achieve a balance between her home and society.

b. Protection of the Egyptian woman from harassments on Egyptian streets and from all forms of discrimination when applying for public or private job positions.

c. Give special support to women doing economic activities such as small businesses, and encourage pioneer women managing their own private enterprises.

d. Changing the negative stance of Egyptian culture regarding women's political participation by presenting successful role models and figures.

2. Restoring the leading role of Azhar as a beacon of the moderate Islamic school of thought and supporting its scientific, educational, managerial, and financial independence and strengthening its ability as a world university attracting the best youth of the Islamic world and as one of Egypt's external leading wings.




3. Fulfilling all our fellow Copts’ rights of citizenship and realizing their full legal equality as Egyptian citizens while maintaining their right to appeal to their religious strictures on matters pertaining to personal status and their religious affairs.

This program includes other items concerning, for example, shifting the licensing procedures for church buildings and worship houses from the presidential institution to the Urban Planning Authority to protect these rights from political abuse by the State.

4. Incorporating an integrative bundle of laws and legislations for protection of the environment as well as the environmental rights of Egyptians into all industrial, agricultural, productive, and urban planning sectors and infrastructural projects, so as to restore the required balance between human consumption and the environment's natural ability to restore its vitality. This file also deals with a number of reform programs, from environmental impact monitoring and assessment mechanisms to incorporating material concerned with environmental awareness into the Egyptian educational curricula.

5. Providing financial and urban incentives to encourage Egyptian families living in the slums to make their own decision to move out under no coercion from the state.

The first step begins with codifying the legal situation of slum inhabitants, i.e. their legal ownership of buildings they live in, and hence their ability to trade its sale value with an alternative one in the real estate market.

This will require incentives suitable for each area's residents, from offering moving alternatives, through facilitating home ownership, to providing infrastructure services ahead in new residential areas.

In sum, the project relies on respecting the dignity of the Egyptian citizen and his right to own his residential property.




Egypt in the News




EGYPT IN THE NEWS*Please click on the links below to navigate to each article

Foreign Policy - Morsi's Egypt Foreign Policy - Bad news for the Brotherhood Foreign Policy - The unexceptional Islamists Woodrow Wilson Center - Don’t Fear All Islamists, Fear

Salafis Council on Foreign Relations - Morsi and the Egyptian

Military Shuffle Xinhua - Egyptian President Morsi visits China to forge closer

ties The Wall Street Journal - Egypt's Morsi Firms China Ties Houston Chronicle - Friedman: Egypt's Morsi should skip

Tehran meeting The Jerusalem Post - Egypt and the treaty The Huffington Post - Is It Time To Return To Egypt? Bloomberg - Egypt Offers 3-Year T-Bonds As Brotherhood

Backs IMF Loan Talks Chicago Tribune - Exclusive: Egypt's president rules out

currency devaluation Reuters - Egypt president hires women, Christians as aides in

nod to diversity TIME - Shades of Mubarak: Egyptian Journalists Chafe Under

Media Controls




Ahram - Political, economic stability drive Egypt market The Washington Post - Egypt’s new leaders must accept

reality




Foreign Policy - Morsi's EgyptBy Marc LynchAugust 21, 2012[Return to Top]

Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi's sudden move last week to oust the senior leadership of the Egyptian military broke a long period of political stagnation and began to bring into view the contours of the emerging political order. It reversed views of Morsi almost overnight. Only two weeks ago, most analysts had written Morsi off as a weak and ineffective executive boxed in by the ascendant military leadership of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF). After his bold move against the SCAF and reversal of its constitutional decrees, many now fear that he and the Muslim Brotherhood stand at the brink of nigh-totalitarian domination.

Both the earlier dismissal and the current exaggerated fears seem premature. Egypt's politics remain polarized, its economy staggering, its institutions decayed. Rules of the game remain in flux, with the constitution still unwritten, parliament dissolved, and the judiciary viewed through a partisan lens. Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood's accelerated push for power risks triggering a backlash, not only from anti-Islamist forces but from centrists uneasy with ideological domination and from Salafi and other Islamist forces jealous of the movement's position. The military may have suffered a setback, but it retains great institutional and economic power, the respect of the Egyptian public, and (lest we forget) guns. Revolutionary forces have been relegated to the sidelines in recent months, but could rekindle street politics at any moment. In Egypt's polarized political environment, fueled by its contentious and turbocharged media and online public sphere, no consensus is likely to soon emerge.

In short, it is still too early to tell which direction Morsi will take Egypt, which forces will cooperate, and which forces will move to resist. There are a number of common theories of the case. One, pointing to deep-seated mistrust of the Muslim Brotherhood, Morsi's unprecedented monopoly on formal power, and disturbing moves against the independent media,



http://lynch.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/08/21/morsis_egypt


demonstrates fear that he will now seek to impose Islamist hegemony. Another sees the military still largely in control, sacrificing its aging figureheads and public political role in exchange for more entrenched power behind the scenes. Still others see Morsi's move as an important step in advancing the transition from authoritarianism to a democratic system by establishing civilian control over the military.

Which of these is correct? Is Egypt still under SCAF's control, heading toward an Islamist theocracy, on the road to democracy, or on the brink of economic and institutional collapse that will make a mockery of the high political games that dominate the headlines? The rapid shift in the narrative should breed at least some analytical humility. Many argue the drafting of the constitution will reveal the truth, but it seems unlikely that any greater interpretive consensus will emerge around that process than has been seen around any other point in Egypt's long, tortured transition to a post-Mubarak era.

"Morsi's Egypt" offers a wide range of analysis of how Egypt got to this point, where it may be going, and how to understand it all. It ranges widely over the dizzying moves of the last few months, including controversial moves by the judiciary around the presidential election ("Calvinball in Cairo," "Cairo's Judicial Coup," and "Egypt's Injudicious Judges"); the role of the military ("The Egyptian Republic of Retired Generals," "Hard Choices for Egypt's Military," "What Morsi Could Learn from Sadat," and "Cobra and Mongoose Become Lion and Lamb"); the struggles of non-Islamist political forces ("Can Egypt Unite?," and "It ain't just a river in Egypt"); the Muslim Brotherhood's calculations ("Monopolizing power in Egypt," "Brother knows best," "Bad news for - and from - the Brotherhood," and much more, including a special guest appearance by the great Ellis Goldberg. Download "Morsi's Egypt" here!

[Return to Top]



http://pomeps.org/2012/08/arab-uprisings-morsis-egypt/#more-2528


Foreign Policy - Bad news for the BrotherhoodBy Mirette F. MabroukAugust 13, 2012[Return to Top]

You would never know there had been a revolution. Within the slightly grimy walls of Egypt's state-owned media buildings, it's business as usual. Observers would be forgiven for thinking the state television and papers are there largely as a public address system for whoever actually has their hands on the country's steering wheel.

Over the 30 years leading up to the 2011 popular uprising, state media took its cue from Hosni Mubarak's gatekeeper, the diminutive but terrifying Safwat el-Sherif, former minister of information. Post January 25, state media and papers backed the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF), the country's ruling military council. Last week, in a nod to the democratic process, it was the turn of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). Egypt's upper house of parliament, the Shura Council, announced the appointments of the new editors, setting off a storm of angry protest among journalists, led by the Journalists' Syndicate, who insisted that the Islamist-dominated council had essentially rigged the selection process and assigned their own men to do its bidding.

There are 55 state-owned publications in Egypt under eight publishing institutions. Since 1979, they've been the responsibility of the Higher Press Council, majority-owned by the Shura Council (51 percent Council to 49 percent employees). Previously, editors-in-chief had been selected by the minister of information who presented the names to the Shura Council which ratified them in session. The arrangement guaranteed a lack of any press freedom since the Shura Council, like the People's Assembly, was overwhelmingly dominated by the National Democratic Party



http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/08/13/the_news_brought_to_you_by_the_brotherhood

http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/08/13/the_news_brought_to_you_by_the_brotherhood


(NDP). The editors were political appointees and expected not so much to toe the party line, as to carve it into the ground for all to note. In March 2011, there was a shake-up, which saw most of these editors unceremoniously replaced by those who were perceived as supportive of the revolution. The appointments were understood to be temporary until the new ones, scheduled for this year, would be chosen from a list of candidates fulfilling preset criteria. Since the new Shura Council is as overwhelmingly dominated by Islamists -- mostly the MB's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) -- as the old one was by the NDP, the new appointments have been awaited with trepidation.

None of the signs boded well. The 14-member selection committee was headed by FJP member Fathy Shehab and included three other FJP members. Two of its four journalists dropped out protesting what they saw as a naked attempt by the Islamist members to force their own candidates and another seven syndicate board members dropped out of discussions with the council altogether. Magdy el-Maasarawy, a Shura Council member who resigned from the committee last month, told Egypt Independent that the original criteria, which drew heavily on what he referred to as professional skills as agreed upon by the journalists, were scrapped by the rest of the committee. Additionally, he said that the 234 candidates didn't all fulfill the criteria, most notably Abd el-Nasser Salama, appointed head of Middle East's most prominent newspaper, Al Ahram. Salama, said Maasarawy, was never at Al Ahram for the required 10 years. He'd been the Muscat bureau chief for three years before returning to Cairo in 2009 as columnist.

Gamal Fahmy, secretary general of the Journalists' Syndicate, also told Egypt Independent that he thought the majority of the new editors were weak, professionally speaking, and certainly not qualified to lead the kind of large staffs involved in these papers. Professional competence is an especially sore point; Yasser Rizk, the former editor of Al-Akhbar is generally acknowledged to have worked wonders with the ailing publication. However, he has not




been supportive of the Islamists and was replaced during the shuffle.

The new editors appear to fall into three categories: the cooperative, the Islamist, and the difficult-to-categorize.

Salama appears to fall into the first group. He is not an Islamist and in fact was a guest on the television program hosted by the controversial anti-MB Tawfik Okasha. Okasha, owner of the Faraeen channel, is currently under investigation for allegedly inciting people to murder President Mohamed Morsi. He is famous for having accused the late Pope Shenouda of inciting sectarianism in 2010 and, more recently, is know for his steady assault on the revolution. His columns and interviews claimed that the protesters were paid thugs and that "cars with foreign diplomatic corps license plates were seen distributing hot meals to people in Tahrir." Faraeen has just been suspended for a month.

The new head of Al-Akhbar El-Adab (the culture arm of Al-Akhbar), Magdy Afifi, falls neatly into the second category; he recently described Safwat Hegazy as "A revolutionary theologian glowing with mercy, lighting up the earth and sky." Not everyone feels the same way about Hegazy, a controversial sheikh who assaulted two female photographers last June at a Morsi speech in Tahrir and had issued a fatwa about killing Jewish men several years ago. The fatwa was promptly scotched by Al Azhar which unceremoniously stripped him of his right to preach in any mosque.

And then, of course, there's Gamal Abd el-Rehim, the new editor of Al-Gomhuriya, who in 2009 screamed at a Baha'i activist that she was an apostate and should be killed. More notable than his sentiments was that he expressed them on live television on Al-Haqiqa, The Truth. Muslim villagers in Sharonya, Assiut seem to have taken his comments on Baha'is to heart and promptly burned all the Baha'i homes in the village to the ground. He has never been censured by the syndicate, let alone tried. Abd El-Rehim falls into the third category; it's uncertain why he was chosen but the choice




fails to say anything reassuring about the state's commitment to religious or ethnic tolerance.

The appointments were followed by a rash of blank editorial pages in national newspapers, a favored means of protest. One of the most prominent protesters was Gamal Fahmy, whose column in in Al-Tahrir newspaper simply read: "This space is blank to protest the hereditary system that did not fall with the ousting of Mubarak and his son. It seems that the Muslim Brotherhood is trying to revive it after it was blinded by arrogance. This protest is against their control of the public owned media."

The appointments are especially worrying in light of the recent appointment of the new minister of information, Salah Abd El-Maqsoud, a MB member. Following the revolution, the MB had called as enthusiastically as other political players for the abolition of the information ministry. Apparently, the group has had a change of heart.

There are probably a couple of reasons for this. The first may be what the MB views as a sustained assault on the group in the media over the past several months. The second is more basic. Traditionally the ranks of the Brotherhood have held professionals including doctors, lawyers, engineers, and teachers. They count precious few artists, columnists, or authors in their fold and as a result tend to be significantly more underrepresented than other political parties. Apparently, they've taken it to heart. Salah Eissa, the assistant secretary general of the syndicate told the Egypt Independent in June that the FJP's paper had recently published several articles that spoke of "purging the press of liberals and leftists."

Journalists see the appointments as an aggressive step toward these purges but they aren't the only signs of what is increasingly feared to be an Islamist domination of the media.




On August 9, Khaled Salah, the editor-in-chief of Al-Youm Al-Sabei, a paper that has been increasingly critical of the Brotherhood, was attacked by what he said were MB protesters on his way to his television program. The attackers, whom he claimed were holding pro-Morsi banners also smashed the windscreen, windows, and mirrors of his car, calling him "one of those who antagonized Morsi." Nor was he the only one; Youssef el-Hosseini, appearing on the same program, was also attacked. MB spokesman Mahmoud Ghozlan categorically denied the charges but the banners were identified by independent witnesses. An investigation is underway.

The Brotherhood also seems to have picked up another favorite NDP tactic -- suing an opponent into silence. The website of the virulently anti-MB newspaper Al-Dostour reported on August 11 that security forces had turned up at the offices and confiscated material. The paper is currently being investigated for sedition. While Al-Dostour's staunchest defenders would admit the paper has a colorful turn of phrase, to say the least, press freedom advocates have condemned the move. Said Garhi of the Justice Center for Freedoms called it "an attempt to impose hegemony, domination and exclusion on those in conflict with the group."

Journalists in Egypt fear that the Brotherhood has already started clamping down on freedom of speech by ensuring that coverage is favorable and closing down the source when it isn't. It is difficult to envisage a healthy democratic transition without freedom of speech. Journalists listened warily to Morsi's comments earlier this week on supporting "the idea of forming a national council to oversee state and private media." In Egypt, the words "National Council" are usually synonymous with "Government Stranglehold." SCAF, while no bastion of freedom of any sort, had previously been seen as a bulwark against Brotherhood dominance. However, early August saw President Morsi make several vital appointments, which appear to have slashed at SCAF's power, leaving control concentrated in the hands of just one party. Egypt's journalists have been here before and they don't like it one bit.




They're not all worried, though. Louis Greiss, former editor of the state-owned weekly Sabah el-Kheir said the Brotherhood might not know what they're up against. "Egypt's press has had 200 years of government intimidation," he said. "There's always a way around it. They always get tired before we do."

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Foreign Policy - The unexceptional IslamistsBy Peter MandavilleJuly 24, 2012[Return to Top]

For decades U.S. foreign policy discourse has been haunted by the idea that there is something categorically different about Islamist political parties. So much so that they need to be thought about, treated, and engaged differently than other political groups with equally strong ideological commitments -- like capitalists, leftists, or green parties. In practice this has led to an assumption that the United States has generally been unwilling to do business with Islamists as a matter of policy. While Iran's 1979 revolution no doubt looms large as a specter here, the policy orientation in question actually traces back most directly to a famous dictum offered by Ed Djerejian -- then Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs -- in 1992. This was in the aftermath of an Algerian election in which Islamists had been poised to win a landslide victory only to see the results annulled by the country's army. An Islamist victory at the ballot box, Djerejian argued, would likely have proven to be a case of "one man, one vote, one time." That is, Islamists would make instrumental use of elections to capture the state, but then dismantle the democratic system once in power to ensure they could never be removed.

The reality of U.S. policy practice around the question of Islamist engagement, however, has always been more complex. We tend to remember and point to those incidents and moments that seem to confirm the general rule of U.S. animosity toward Islamists. Washington's reaction to the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections, in which Hamas won a controlling majority, is frequently cited as a prime example of this orientation. But even here things are more complicated than they perhaps seem. While many observers saw the U.S. reaction as evidence that the United States cannot do business with Islamists, the consternation in Washington actually



http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/07/24/the_unexceptional_islamists


stemmed from a combination of the fact that a legally designated terrorist group was poised to form the Palestinian Authority's government -- with all manner of entailing complications for U.S. financial assistance and diplomatic relations -- and the usual concerns about Israel and the collapse of the United States' preferred Fatah faction.

And what about the much-vaunted policy of no contact with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood that the U.S. administration has now seemingly had to revise? Viewed in the bigger picture of U.S. ties with the Brotherhood, the approximately 10 years during which this no-contact policy was in place actually represents an exception rather than the norm. During the 1980s and even part of the 1990s, U.S. diplomats in Egypt had fairly regular meetings with Islamists. The change in policy in the later 1990s was the result of a direct request from the Egyptian government asking that the United States cease contact with the Brotherhood in order to help the Mubarak regime discredit Islamists in the eyes of the Egyptian public. In other words, this shift tells us more about the cozy, quid pro quo relationship between Washington and Cairo than it does about official U.S. attitudes toward Islamist ideology.

In fact, regular engagement with Islamists has been a fact of life in U.S. foreign policy for a couple of decades across both Democratic and Republican administrations. U.S. embassies in countries like Morocco, Jordan, Yemen, Algeria, Kuwait, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Indonesia have long had routine meetings with representatives of those countries' Islamist movements and parties. Several of those same parties have even participated in training and technical assistance programs funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). The U.S.-funded NGOs that run these seminars have often told me that the Islamist parties are commonly their most diligent and committed partners. There is even something like a "party international" for Islamists called the International Union of Islamic Parliamentarians. When I asked its




founders back in 2007 where they got the idea from, they told me that it came in part from a U.S.-funded political training seminar they had attended (U.S. democracy promoters often encourage political parties to establish transnational ties to democratically-oriented parties in other countries with similar visions and platforms). So if the United States is worried about the formation of something like an Islamist Comintern, it needs to recognize that U.S. NGOs are the ones pushing the idea.

The reason why U.S. relations with Islamist parties, once you scratch below the surface, turn out to be more "normal" and mundane than one might expect are not difficult to discern: these are, for the most part, normal political parties. They contest elections, enter parliaments, form coalitions with other (often non-Islamist) parties, compromise when necessary to get things done, and, when voted out of office, step down and prepare to run again. Recent commentary about the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood's attempt at a "power grab" -- that is, seeking the presidency on top of the near majority they had attained in recent parliamentary elections -- has therefore sounded oddly out of tune with reality. Seeking power is what political parties do. One can certainly question whether this course of action was in the best interests of Egypt's political development or even perhaps a strategic miscalculation on the part of the Muslim Brotherhood. But that is quite a separate issue.

None of this is to say that there aren't good reasons to be concerned about the recent rise of Islamists in certain countries. These groups vary considerably across the region and are shaped by the political environments in which they operate. There are factors in play that mean, for example, that the Party of Justice and Development in Morocco, Jordan's Islamic Action Front, or the Islamic Constitutional Movement in Kuwait are subject to different kinds of constraints than Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood. And even where the latter seems to have made a clear commitment to the procedural aspects of democracy such as elections and due




process, the fact remains that the Brotherhood's commitment to universal standards of human rights and genuine political pluralism -- particularly as regards the equal status of women and religious minorities -- is unproven at best. And there have been some worrying signs. The more Egypt's constitutional discourse veers in the direction of creating legal categories based on religious identity -- even when the ostensible purpose is to ensure the rights of Christians to live according to their own family law -- the further the retreat from the ideal of a civil state that can guarantee the full and equal rights of all citizens according to a single standard. The Brotherhood also seems to be re-engaging some of the unpopular ideas it had dropped from its 2007 draft platform, including the possibility of creating a council of religious scholars to ensure the compliance of legislation with Islamic law. And is the United States totally confident that if and when further incidents of sectarian violence perpetrated by Salafis in Upper Egypt occur, that the Brotherhood will not hesitate to condemn them swiftly and loudly?

There are, of course, also ongoing concerns about Israel and regional security arrangements. Strong anti-Israeli sentiment is hardly unique to Islamists. It is pervasive in the Arab world, regardless of political stripe. That said, it is still the case that in Egypt at least, the foreign policy values and priorities of the Muslim Brotherhood do not align with those of the United States. President Mohamed Morsi will likely be tempted to find or create opportunities to demonstrate that Egypt's foreign policy is no longer a function of U.S. interests in the Middle East. This could have serious repercussions not just for bilateral ties, but also U.S. policy in the broader region where the support of a once reliable ally can no longer be taken for granted.

But when it comes down to it, the primary worry the United States should have about the Islamists is whether they are up to the job. The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, for example, has spent decades in opposition relying on vacuous slogans ("Islam is the solution!"). Can they transform into problem-solvers capable of addressing




Egypt's dire socioeconomic malaise? Can they reform a stagnant and ineffective public sector deeply steeped in an ethos of graft and unaccountability? These are the chief challenges facing Islamists today. And in this, unfortunately -- as in many other regards -- they appear wholly unexceptional as political actors in the Arab world.

Peter Mandaville is director of the Ali Vural Ak Center for Middle East & Islamic Studies at George Mason University and a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Author of the book Global Political Islam, he is also a former member of the Secretary of State's Policy Planning Staff where his work focused on U.S. policy toward Islamist groups.

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Woodrow Wilson Center - Don’t Fear All Islamists, Fear SalafisBy Robin WrightAugust 21, 2012[Return to Top]

WASHINGTON - This spring, I traveled to the cradle of the Arab uprisings — a forlorn street corner in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia, where a street vendor, drenched in paint thinner, struck a match in December 2010 that ignited the entire Middle East. “We have far more freedoms,” one peddler hawking fruit in the same square lamented, “but far fewer jobs.” Another noted that Mohamed Bouazizi, the vendor who set himself on fire, did so not to vote in a democratic election but because harassment by local officials had cost him his livelihood.

As the peddlers vented, prayers ended at the whitewashed mosque across the street. Among the faithful were Salafis, ultraconservative Sunni Muslims vying to define the new order according to seventh-century religious traditions rather than earthly realities. For years, many Salafis — “salaf” means predecessors — had avoided politics and embraced autocrats as long as they were Muslims. But over the past eight months, clusters of worshipers across the Middle East have morphed into powerful Salafi movements that are tapping into the disillusionment and disorder of transitions.

A new Salafi Crescent, radiating from the Persian Gulf sheikdoms into the Levant and North Africa, is one of the most underappreciated and disturbing byproducts of the Arab revolts. In varying degrees, these populist puritans are moving into the political space once occupied by jihadi militants, who are now less in vogue. Both are fundamentalists who favor a new order modeled on early Islam. Salafis are not necessarily fighters, however. Many disavow violence.



http://www.wilsoncenter.org/islamists/article/don%E2%80%99t-fear-all-islamists-fear-salafis

http://www.wilsoncenter.org/islamists/article/don%E2%80%99t-fear-all-islamists-fear-salafis


In Tunisia, Salafis started the Reform Front party in May and led protests, including in Sidi Bouzid. This summer, they’ve repeatedly attacked symbols of the new freedom of speech, ransacking an art gallery and blocking Sufi musicians and political comedians from performing. In Egypt, Salafis emerged last year from obscurity, hastily formed parties, and in January won 25 percent of the seats in parliament — second only to the 84-year-old Muslim Brotherhood. Salafis are a growing influence in Syria’s rebellion. And they have parties or factions in Algeria, Bahrain, Kuwait, Libya, Yemen and among Palestinians.

Salafis are only one slice of a rapidly evolving Islamist spectrum. The variety of Islamists in the early 21st century recalls socialism’s many shades in the 20th. Now, as then, some Islamists are more hazardous to Western interests and values than others. The Salafis are most averse to minority and women’s rights.

A common denominator among disparate Salafi groups is inspiration and support from Wahhabis, a puritanical strain of Sunni Islam from Saudi Arabia. Not all Saudis are Wahhabis. Not all Salafis are Wahhabis, either. But Wahhabis are basically all Salafis. And many Arabs, particularly outside the sparsely populated Gulf, suspect that Wahhabis are trying to seize the future by aiding and abetting the region’s newly politicized Salafis — as they did 30 years ago by funding the South Asian madrassas that produced Afghanistan’s Taliban.

Salafis go much further in restricting political and personal life than the larger and more modern Islamist parties that have won electoral pluralities in Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco since October. For most Arabs, the rallying cry is justice, both economic and political. For Salafis, it is also about a virtue that is inflexible and enforceable.

“You have two choices: heaven or hellfire,” Sheikh Muhammad el-Kurdi instructed me after his election to Egypt’s parliament as a member of Al Nour, a Salafi party. It favors gender segregation in




schools and offices, he told me, so that men can concentrate. “It’s O.K. for you to be in the room,” he explained. “You are our guest, and we know why you’re here. But you are one woman and we are three men — and we all want to marry you.” Marriage may have been a euphemism.

Other more modern Islamists fear the Salafi factor. “The Salafis try to push us,” said Rachid al-Ghannouchi, founder of Ennahda, the ruling Islamist party in Tunisia. The two Islamist groups there are now rivals. “Salafis are against drafting a constitution. They think it is the Koran,” grumbled Merhézia Labidi, the vice chairwoman of Tunisia’s Constituent Assembly and a member of Ennahda.

Salafis are deepening the divide between Sunni and Shiite Muslims and challenging the “Shiite Crescent,” a term coined by Jordan’s King Abdullah in 2004, during the Iraq war, to describe an arc of influence from Shiite-dominated Iran to its allies in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Today, these rival crescents risk turning countries in transition into battlefields over the region’s future.

The Salafis represent a painful long-term conundrum for the West. Their goals are the most anti-Western of any Islamist parties. They are trying to push both secularists and other Islamists into the not-always-virtuous past.

American policy recently had its own awakening after 60 years of support for autocratic rulers. The United States opted to embrace people power and electoral change in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Morocco and Yemen. Yet Washington still embraces authoritarian Gulf monarchies like Saudi Arabia, tolerating their vague promises of reform and even pledging the United States’ might to protect them.

Foreign policy should be nuanced, whether because of oil needs or to counter threats from Iran. But there is something dreadfully wrong with tying America’s future position in the region to the




birthplace and bastion of Salafism and its warped vision of a new order.

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Council on Foreign Relations - Morsi and the Egyptian Military ShuffleInterviewee: Steven A. Cook, Hasib J. Sabbagh Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern StudiesInterviewer: Bernard Gwertzman, Consulting EditorAugust 14, 2012 [Return to Top]

Egypt's President Mohamed Morsi "gets good marks" so far for his handling of the reshuffling of the top ranks of the Egyptian military, says Steven A. Cook, CFR's top Egypt expert. But Cook points out that because of Morsi's background as a leader in the Muslim Brotherhood, there is "concern now among remnants of the old regime, people who enjoy a secular lifestyle, Coptic Christians, and others, about what the intentions of the Brotherhood are," since many of these people have counted on the military to keep the Brotherhood down. "The Brotherhood counters that this is a clarifying moment, that there cannot be an environment where there is a duality of powers and that President Morsi is only taking steps to create a civil state, which is what Egyptians have said that they want," Cook says.

Over the weekend there was a surprise announcement by Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi that the top leadership of the Egyptian military has been reshuffled; the top two officers as well as all of the service chiefs were retired with honors and a younger crew has taken over. The new head of the Egyptian military, Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, appears to be someone the U.S. military is quite comfortable with since they have been working together for many years. What do you make of all this?

There is a tremendous amount of speculation about what has happened, how it has happened, and what's going to happen.



http://www.cfr.org/egypt/morsi-egyptian-military-shuffle/p28842

http://www.cfr.org/egypt/morsi-egyptian-military-shuffle/p28842


President Morsi is doing what any new leader in his situation would do, which is to consolidate his own power. The way in which the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) under Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi had set things up, was that there would be essentially dual decision making in Egypt. You would have the president who would be responsible for some things, while SCAF and the armed forces would be responsible for defense and national security issues, broadly defined. That necessarily impinged on the powers of the presidency, so we can presume that President Morsi and the people around him had reached out to younger officers just below the leadership--although the new minister of defense, General el-Sissi, did serve on SCAF--and offered them promotions, which they readily accepted at the expense of Field Marshal Tantawi and Lieutenant General Sami Enan, the chief of staff.

Has there been any commentary from the military?

No, there hasn't, and people keep expecting some sort of response from somewhere. It seems to me that President Morsi has secured the loyalty of the officers that he has appointed, [and] Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi and Lieutenant General Sami Enan don't have any recourse but to retire. There is no one now who is going to stand up and respond; at least, that's what it seems. We'll have to see what happens next.

In Egypt, there have been many twist and turns since the downfall of President Hosni Mubarak, but until now we haven't seen any kind of response from the military to the retirement of Tantawi and Enan. That's not suggesting that it won't come, or that Morsi's decision won't have a polarizing effect on Egyptian society. There are people who are already deeply concerned and mistrustful of the intentions of the Muslim Brotherhood, and saw SCAF under Field Marshal Tantawi as an insurance policy against the Muslim Brotherhood overreaching and trying to implement what people perceive to be its agenda. There's obviously concern now among remnants of the old regime, people who enjoy a secular lifestyle,




Coptic Christians, and others, about what the intentions of the Brotherhood are. The Brotherhood counters that this is a clarifying moment, that there cannot be an environment where there is a duality of powers and that President Morsi is only taking steps to create a civil state, which is what Egyptians have said that they want.

What do we know about the new head of the military, General el-Sissi?

We don't know all that much about hm. At fifty-seven years old, he is the youngest member of SCAF, and is considerably younger than Field Marshal Tantawi, who is seventy-six, or Lieutenant General Enan, who is sixty-four. He was in the infantry and most recently he was the head of the military intelligence. The senior U.S. military leadership generally had interactions with Field Marshal Tantawi and Lieutenant General Enan, I don't know what the quality of the relationship was like at the more senior levels with General el-Sisi, but it stands to reason given that he was the head of military intelligence, that there was some connection in between the United States and him. But there really isn't much that is known.

The Wall Street Journal today says that General el-Sisi had dinner in October with President Obama's top counterterrorism advisor, John Brennan, during a visit to Cairo.

My guess is that this was not an intimate dinner for two. It would make sense for John Brennan to be interacting with the head of military intelligence in Egypt. There have been a number of things that the United States has been concerned about; one is the deteriorating situation in Sinai and the existence of sympathizers to a variety of extreme organizations that operate in the Sinai. The United States has actually been concerned about this for much of the past decade but was unable to get the Egyptians really terribly interested in this. And there has been an ongoing conversation with the Egyptian military about altering Egypt's military doctrine to focus more on these counterterrorist threats rather than the kind of




big tank battles and air battles that the Egyptian military seems to want to be equipped for.

Talk about the Sinai fighting. In recent days we had this unexpected explosion in the Sinai where jihadists killed sixteen Egyptian soldiers, leading to major counterattacks. The Israelis got involved on the border, and Egyptian tanks were flowing into the Sinai. Is this a kind of wakeup call or what?

The situation in Sinai has been deteriorating for some time. Israelis have been concerned about this for quite some time, but beginning last summer, when there was an attempted infiltration on the part of extremists into Israel from the Sinai, the issue has been more front and center in the relationship between Egypt and Israel than it had been previously. The Egyptian military is restricted by the 1979 peace treaty in how many forces it can put in the Sinai, but since the uprising, the Israelis have been rather flexible with Egyptian requests to put more forces in the Sinai. And Israelis in fact said to Egyptians "by all means, deploy seven battalions into the Sinai," but the Egyptians can only rally two. Last summer Egypt undertook an operation called Operation Eagle, which was a failure and didn't do much to secure the Sinai. The situation has been festering ever since.

The problem in the Sinai is not simple. You have weapons smuggling, drug smuggling, human trafficking, which is primarily done by Bedouins in the area. You have Bedouins who are engaged against the security forces because of the way the government in Cairo has treated them, people are angry about the limited economic opportunity in Sinai and the lack of public services. And then of course you have Palestinian sympathizers, jihadist sympathizers, al-Qaeda sympathizers, the so-called Takfiri (pdf), people who have left the Egyptian society to build a perfect Islamic society in the Sinai. So it's a multilayered and complex problem that has been allowed to fester over a long period of time.




Essentially Egypt has limited sovereignty over its own territory in the Sinai.

President Morsi has been in office now for two months. Would you give him a good grade?

It's hard to grade. There's something called the Morsi meter, where people are tracking what he has done. Of course it's early, it's only been two months, but people have complained that little has changed, and every move that Morsi makes is seen by some as a sinister move. But he has made the most of the situation that the Sinai helped create in order to consolidate his power. Most analysts were expecting there to be some sort of confrontation if Morsi tried to get out from under the restrictions that the military had placed on him, but nobody really expected it to happen so soon and I think that the recent incidents in the Sinai have provided an opportunity for him. In the broad abstract, moving the military out of politics and potentially changing the balance of civil-military relations in Egypt is overall a good thing. But it all depends now on what Morsi's next move is. At the moment, he holds executive and legislative power. There's an accumulation of power in the presidency but that that's not what the uprising was about. The problem with Mubarak and the perennial problem in Egyptian politics has been the overwhelming power of the executive at the expense of the other branches of government. We now have to see what happens with the new constitution. The constituent assembly is supposed to report on a draft quite soon. Morsi gets good marks for trying to bring the military under his heel, but it's also too early to tell what direction Morsi is going to go now that he seems to have mastered the military.

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Xinhua - Egyptian President Morsi visits China to forge closer tiesBy CNTV.cnAugust 28, 2012[Return to Top]

BEIJING, Aug. 29 (Xinhuanet) -- The new President in Egypt. His first visit to China. Mohamed Morsi has begun his three-day visit to China just two months after taking office.

President Hu Jintao welcomed him to Beijing.

Chinese President Hu Jintao said, “You chose China to be one of the first countries to visit after taking office. This shows that you attach great importance to Sino-Egyptian relations. I believe your visit to China will further boost our cooperation in all fields."

President Hu’s words were well-received by his Egyptian counterpart.

Mohamed Morsi, Egyptian President, said, “China and Egypt are two ancient civilizations, and that laid the groundwork for our long-standing friendship. I’m finally here in China. Thank you so much for your hospitality."

After concluding the meeting between the two leaders, the two sides signed eight cooperative agreements covering trade and financing, agriculture, telecommunications and tourism.

The most pressing challenge for Morsi and his government is to revive the country’s stagnant economy.

China and Egypt have managed to maintain steady and robust cooperation despite Egypt’s social turmoil.

Bilateral trade rose to 8.8 billion U.S. dollars last year, up nearly 30 percent year-on-year.



http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/video/2012-08/29/c_131814751.htm

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/video/2012-08/29/c_131814751.htm


Over the course of Morsi’s visit, the two sides are also expected to exchange ideas on international and regional issues of common concern, especially the on-going conflict in Syria.

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The Wall Street Journal - Egypt's Morsi Firms China TiesBy Brian Spegele and Matt BradleyAugust 29, 2012[Return to Top]

President Mohammed Morsi on his first official trip outside the Middle East took early steps to tie Egypt more tightly to Beijing, at a time when China's wider reach in the region is posing an increasing challenge to U.S. influence there.

Mr. Morsi secured new Chinese credit for economic development in Egypt, and met Chinese President Hu Jintao at Beijing's Great Hall of the People on Tuesday, the first day of his state visit. His trip will also include a closely watched stopover in Iran.

Mr. Morsi's visit underscores that Cairo and others in the region view Beijing as a critical partner. The warming ties come despite Beijing's reluctance to support the revolutions that have swept Mr. Morsi and others into power.

The high-profile visit signals China's approach to handling Arab Spring upheaval hasn't jeopardized its ties with regional powers, Chinese analysts said this week. Western leaders, including U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, have criticized decisions by Beijing and Moscow to block United Nations action against Syria, for example.

"If China was so bad for the Middle East people, I don't think President Morsi would come to China," said Wang Suolao, who researches China-Middle East relations at Peking University.

China is battling negative perceptions in some parts of the Middle East, particularly after it vetoed with Russia U.N. Security Council resolutions targeting the Syrian regime in February and in July, defying calls for action by a number of Middle Eastern nations.



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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444230504577617271550304082.html?mod=googlenews_wsj


China has long held that it won't support plans that it sees as meddling in other countries' affairs.

Nonetheless, analysts said the issue of Syria was unlikely to be the focus of Mr. Morsi's meetings with Mr. Hu and other Chinese leaders this week. Egypt's economy has been largely flattened by political unrest, and Cairo is eager to portray the visit as focused on spurring much-needed investment rather than Arab Spring politics.

"This is not about Syria, it's about bilateral relations with Egypt and the new projection of Egypt internationally," said Nabil Fahmy, dean of the School of Public Affairs at the American University in Cairo and a former Egyptian ambassador to the U.S. employment rates and credit remains tight amid continuing fears of political uncertainty. At the same time, Cairo is eager to attract Chinese tourists and sell more goods to China, among other efforts aimed at reducing a severe trade imbalance.

Total trade between the countries surged to $8.8 billion in 2011 from around $6 billion in 2009, according to official Chinese statistics, though a trade deficit of $5.8 billion in 2011 continued to heavily tilt in China's favor. U.S. trade with Egypt totaled $8.3 billion in 2011, a slight decline from 2010, according to U.S. Trade Representative data.

The most tangible outcome of Tuesday's meeting of the countries' presidents was a new $200 million credit line from China Development Bank to the National Bank of Egypt.

Mr. Morsi's eagerness to deepen ties with China marks the latest sign that Beijing's emergence as a political force in the Middle East is complicating Washington's foreign policy there, analysts said.

Egypt's natural resources are much smaller than elsewhere in the Middle East, and China's warming ties there are viewed as a bid to curry favor with a traditional regional power broker rather than as a resource play.




Mr. Morsi's visit "is part of a larger strategy to basically end Egyptian reliance on the West," said David Schenker, an Egypt analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "And they see China as an integral part to that strategy."

Mr. Morsi, backed by the Muslim Brotherhood, is eager to demonstrate his visit to China, as well as to Iran later this week, as the beginning of a more proactive foreign policy. Mr. Morsi will also soon visit the U.S. and Brazil as part of his diplomatic debut.

Cairo has long received economic and political backing from Washington, including significant amounts of military aid. Nonetheless, uncertainty is growing in some parts of Washington over Mr. Morsi's Islamist backing, as well as over his government's respect for the rule of law and human rights.

U.S policy makers, while still taking the measure of how Mr. Morsi's policies will develop, are finding themselves in the rare situation of vying with their Chinese counterparts for Cairo's attention and will want to avoid the prospect of Cairo leveraging Washington against Beijing in a competition for regional influence.

Mrs. Clinton, who met with Mr. Morsi in July, soon after he took power, made sure to convey that the U.S. is maintaining economic support for Cairo.

Mr. Morsi will be in the U.S. in September for meetings at the U.N. The White House hasn't yet said whether he will meet with President Barack Obama.

U.S. officials, meanwhile, are keeping close tabs on China. Senior U.S. officials spent a day in discussions in Beijing earlier this month as part of the U.S.-China Middle East Dialogue. And next week, Mrs. Clinton will stop in China during a trip across Asia that comes as the Obama administration moves to deepen its military and strategic involvement across the region.




Some analysts, meanwhile, have compared China's deepening ties to Egypt with Beijing's inroads in Iran after its Western-backed shah was toppled in 1979. In the ensuing decades, Iran has played a key role in helping Beijing secure resources to fuel its economic growth, and warming ties with Egypt would serve longer-term and strategic ambitions in the region.

China has deepened military and security ties across the Middle East in recent years. That is as growing numbers of its citizens seek business there and state-owned companies acquire larger energy and other assets.

Beijing remains heavily reliant on Middle East oil to fuel its economic growth. Security analysts say China's leaders appear intent on bolstering strategic alliances there and using an increasingly modern navy to safeguard interests in the region.

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Houston Chronicle - Friedman: Egypt's Morsi should skip Tehran meetingBy Thomas L. FriedmanAugust 28, 2012[Return to Top]

I find it very disturbing that one of the first trips by Egypt's newly elected president, Mohammed Morsi, will be to attend the Nonaligned Movement's summit meeting in Tehran this week. Excuse me, President Morsi, but there is only one reason the Iranian regime wants to hold the meeting in Tehran and have heads of state like you attend, and that is to signal to Iran's people that the world approves of their country's clerical leadership and should never, ever, ever think about launching a democracy movement - the exact same kind of democracy movement that brought you, Mr. Morsi, to power in Egypt.

In 2009, this Iranian regime literally killed the Green Revolution. It gunned down hundreds and jailed thousands of Iranians who wanted the one thing that Egyptians got: to have their votes counted honestly and the results respected. Morsi, who was brought to power by a courageous democracy revolution that neither he nor his Muslim Brotherhood party started - but who benefited from the free and fair election that followed - is lending his legitimacy to an Iranian regime that brutally crushed just such a movement in Tehran. This does not augur well for Morsi's presidency. In fact, he should be ashamed of himself.

"The Iranian regime has offered Morsi a sanitized tour of its nuclear facilities" noted Karim Sadjadpour, the Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment. "As a former political prisoner in Mubarak's Egypt, Morsi should also request a visit to Tehran's notorious Evin prison. It will remind him of his own past and offer him a glimpse of Iran's future."



http://www.chron.com/news/article/Friedman-Egypt-s-Morsi-should-skip-Tehran-meeting-3822585.php

http://www.chron.com/news/article/Friedman-Egypt-s-Morsi-should-skip-Tehran-meeting-3822585.php


Egyptian officials say Morsi is only stopping in Tehran for a few hours to hand over the presidency of the Nonaligned Movement to Iran from Egypt. Really? He could have done that by mail. By the way, what is the Nonaligned Movement anymore? "Nonaligned against what and between whom?" asked Michael Mandelbaum, a foreign policy specialist at Johns Hopkins.

The Nonaligned Movement was conceived at the Bandung summit in 1955, but there was a logic to it then. The world was divided between Western democratic capitalists and Eastern Communists, and developing states like Egypt, Yugoslavia and Indonesia declared themselves "nonaligned" with these two blocs. But "there is no Communist bloc today," Mandelbaum said. "The main division in the world is between democratic and undemocratic countries."

Is Morsi nonaligned in that choice? Is he nonaligned when it comes to choosing between democracies and dictatorships - especially the Iranian one that is so complicit in crushing the Syrian rebellion as well? And by the way, why is Ban Ki-moon, the U.N. secretary-general, lending his hand to this Iranian whitewashing festival? What a betrayal of Iranian democrats.

This has nothing to do with Israel or Iran's nukes. If Morsi wants to maintain a cold peace with Israel, that is his business. As for Morsi himself, I'd like to see him succeed in turning Egypt around. It would be a huge boost to democracy in the Arab world.

If Morsi needs a primer on the democracy movement in Iran (whose Islamic regime broke relations with Egypt in 1979 to protest the peace treaty with Israel) he can read the one offered by Stanford's Iran expert, Abbas Milani, on the U.S. Institute of Peace website: "The Green Movement reached its height when up to 3 million peaceful demonstrators turned out on Tehran streets to protest official claims that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had won the 2009 presidential election in a landslide. Their simple slogan was: 'Where is my vote?' ... Over the next six months, the Green Movement evolved from a mass group of angry voters to a




nationwide force demanding the democratic rights originally sought in the 1979 revolution, rights that were hijacked by radical clerics. … As momentum grew behind the Green Movement, the government response was increasingly tough. In the fall of 2009, more than 100 of the Green Movement's most important leaders, activists and theorists appeared in show trials reminiscent of Joseph Stalin's infamous trials in the 1930s."

By early 2010, the regime had quashed all public opposition.

That is the regime that Morsi will be helping to sanitize. One at least hopes he read the letter sent to him by an Iranian democracy group, Green Messengers of Hope, urging Morsi to remind his Iranian hosts "of the fates of the leaders who kept turning their backs on the votes of their people, and to urge them to govern their country relying on the support of the Iranian people rather than military forces." Morsi might want to even remind himself of that.

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The Jerusalem Post - Egypt and the treatyEgypt may request that Israel review and amend the security arrangement; Israel should consider such a future request in good faith.By Liron A. LibmanAugust 26, 2012[Return to Top]

Since the beginning of the regional turmoil and the regime change in Egypt, there were Egyptian voices speaking of cancelling or reviewing the peace treaty with Israel. Lately, after the terrorist attack in Sinai that killed 16 Egyptian border guards, Mr. Mohamed Gadallah, legal adviser to the president of Egypt, Mohamed Morsy, was quoted saying that the president is studying whether to amend the Camp David accords to ensure Egypt’s “full sovereignty” over Sinai.



http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=282678


Naturally, these expressions raise concern in the Israeli public. However, let us put aside the political implications of these expressions to examine international law: can Egypt legally change or cancel unilaterally its peace treaty with Israel?

The peace treaty between Israel and Egypt has no expiration date nor does it prescribe a procedure for its cancellation by one of the parties. This treaty established the peace between Israel and Egypt on the foundations of a full Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula and the Israeli recognition of full Egyptian sovereignty over Sinai. In the same breath, the treaty established security arrangements, essentially creating limited force zones, mainly in Sinai, and deploying an international force to supervise the implementation of these security arrangements.

The peace treaty itself allows the review and amendment of the security arrangements, at the request of a party. However, amendments must be by mutual agreement.

Therefore, Egypt may request that Israel review and amend the security arrangement. Israel should consider such a future request in good faith, as required in the implementation of treaties. It is worth mentioning that in the past, in face of a change in security conditions in the Gaza Strip because of Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip in 2005, Israel and Egypt agreed on a new security arrangement. Under this arrangement, Egyptian border-guard forces, on an agreed scale, have deployed on the Egyptian side of the Gaza Strip, where only Egyptian civil police, armed with light weapons, were allowed to deploy under the peace treaty.

This was done without derogation from the treaty. Moreover, media reports suggest that where temporary security needs justify the operation of additional forces, this pinpoint activity is enabled through coordination channels with Israel. For example, publications contend that Egyptian air force attacks against terrorist targets in Sinai, after the terrorist attack mentioned above, were coordinated with Israel.




Egypt can reasonably argue that the security circumstances in Sinai have changed due to the establishment and strengthening of terrorist strongholds in the Sinai by local and foreign organizations. It may well be that taking on the weapons these terrorists possess is not possible using only police forces and light weapons. However, any amendment Egypt may seek in the existing arrangement must be proportional to the new threat in the scale of force, its equipment and duration of deployment.

Egypt should remember that the removal from the border of significant Egyptian military forces that may pose a military threat to Israel was a paramount factor enabling Israel to cut the deal and withdraw from Sinai while preserving its security needs. If negotiation regarding amendment of the security arrangements takes place, Israel too could address circumstances that have changed on the ground. For instance, the flow of illegal migrants through the Egyptian-Israeli border, most of them from Eritrea and Sudan, seeking employment in Israel, is also a new phenomenon not anticipated when the treaty was signed. Israel can seek to establish new security arrangements with Egypt to tackle this problem.

International law determines that even a fundamental change of circumstances which has occurred with regard to those existing at the time of the conclusion of a treaty, and which was not foreseen by the parties, may not be invoked as a ground for terminating or withdrawing from the treaty, unless some exceptional conditions were fulfilled. In any case, international law specifically states that such a cause cannot be grounds to terminate a treaty that establishes a boundary. Egypt cannot hold the territorial gains achieved in the peace treaty while shaking off its obligations under it.

The author is a IDF colonel (res.) and an attorney. He is the former head of the IDF’s International Law Department.

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The Huffington Post - Is It Time To Return To Egypt?By Jean Newman GlockAugust 29, 2012[Return to Top]

I am returning to Egypt with the U.S. Business Mission to Egypt this fall, a visit led by high ranking State Department officials, and I couldn't be more excited. Egypt is my favorite destinations on Earth.

Over the past 10 years, I have visited Egypt 15 times. Walking the sands of the West Bank of Luxor always transports me to ancient Egypt and the glory that was a magnificent civilization. The warmth of the sand, the vivid colors still vibrant on the walls of the tombs in the Valley of the Kings and the smells of incense in the cities let's you know you really aren't in Kansas anymore. Walking through the stalls of the Khan el-Khalili bazaar you see the textiles and spices that have made Egypt famous for millennia.

If you have never been, now is the time to go. Tourism -- and prices -- fell dramatically following the Arab Spring, but tourist have begun to return.

The Egyptian government just announced they have reopened the full length of the Nile to boat cruise traffic. Over the past 12 years, the section from Cairo to Luxor has been closed due to security concerns and water levels, but now it is all open. One of my favorite temples in this section is the Temple of Dendera, where there is the only known carving showing Cleopatra and her son with Julius Caesar- Caesarion. How could the most jaded tourist not be awed looking at "pictures" of this most famous mother and son?

A more recent historic site, the beautiful Old Cataract Hotel in Aswan where Agatha Christie wrote Death on the Nile, has just been totally redone and is a destination in itself. Aswan and the



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jean-newman-glock/time-to-return-to-egypt_b_1833384.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jean-newman-glock/time-to-return-to-egypt_b_1833384.html


warm and welcoming Nubian culture are far removed from the hectic pace of Cairo. Don't miss it or the iconic temples further south of Abu Simbel. Did you know that when Ramses II built these in the 13th century B.C., they were perfectly sited to allow a ray of sunlight to penetrate the temple twice a year to illuminate 3 of the 4 statues in the rear of the temple. The fourth represented the underworld and was never illuminated. When the entire temples were moved to avoid their loss as the Aswan Dam was built in the 1960's, modern scientists were unable to replicate this precise siting even with 20th century instruments. Need I say more about the brilliance of the civilization that was ancient Egypt?

Egypt will always be top of my list for explorations. Watch out for my posts during my visit there in early September. I think it is time to return and I am as excited as I was for my very first visit.

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Bloomberg - Egypt Offers 3-Year T-Bonds As Brotherhood Backs IMF Loan TalksBy Ahmed A. NamatallaAugust 27, 2012[Return to Top]

Egypt will offer 2 billion Egyptian pounds ($328 million) of three-year treasury bonds today as the Muslim Brotherhood threw its support behind loan negotiations with the International Monetary Fund. The dollar bonds rose.

The North African country last sold similar-maturity notes at 16.21 percent on Aug. 16, according to central bank data on Bloomberg. The sale is part of a plan to raise a record 175 billion pounds this quarter.

The Brotherhood’s political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party, “understands the importance of the agreement with the IMF on the international level, and how it boosts” confidence, the group said in a statement posted on its Facebook page. Egypt is negotiating with the fund for as much as $4.8 billion in aid to help bridge its budget deficit and jump-start economic growth. The party is the country’s biggest.

The government has raised about 94 percent of the 121 billion pounds it has offered in securities since the start of the quarter as it tries to control yields. All debt sales in the period have received more bids than the amounts offered, according to central bank data on Bloomberg.

The nation’s 5.75 percent dollar bonds due in 2020 advanced for an eighth day, pushing the yield down three basis points, or 0.03 of a percentage point, to 5.46 percent at 10:38 a.m. in Cairo, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s the lowest level on a closing basis since September 2011.



http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-27/egypt-offers-3-year-t-bonds-as-brotherhood-backs-imf-loan-talks.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-27/egypt-offers-3-year-t-bonds-as-brotherhood-backs-imf-loan-talks.html


The pound, subject to a managed float, weakened 0.1 percent to 6.0917 a dollar, near the lowest level since December 2004.

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Chicago Tribune - Exclusive: Egypt's president rules out currency devaluationBy Marwa Awad and Patrick Werr, ReutersAugust 28, 2012[Return to Top]

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's new president said on Monday he would not impose new taxes or devalue the country's currency and that his government would rely instead on investment, tourism and exports to fix an economy ravaged by a year and a half of political turmoil.

Mohamed Mursi, 61, has a window of opportunity to push through economic change while he still commands political goodwill 50 days into his tenure as Egypt's first freely elected president, economists say.

Yet he must tread carefully to avoid angering a population that rose up to oust Hosni Mubarak last year partly because of high inflation and the widespread belief that the fast economic growth in the last years of the former president's rule was not reaching the poor.

Among measures that have been proposed by economists are a reduction in the value of the currency, which has fallen by only 5 percent over the last 18 months despite the drop in demand from tourists and investors.

But asked if his government had any thought of devaluing the Egyptian pound, Mursi said: "No. Definitely not. This is completely out of the question."

Mursi was speaking to Reuters in his first interview with an international news organization hours before leaving for China, where he hopes to attract investment and improve economic ties. Next month he flies to the United States on a similar mission.



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"I am seeking out the interests of the Egyptian people in the east and the west. I will go wherever these may be," Mursi said, speaking from the ground floor of the presidential palace.

"The interests of the Egyptian people require that we balance our relations with the whole world."

The anti-Mubarak uprising and its aftermath chased away both tourists and foreign investors, two of Egypt's main sources of foreign exchange, putting pressure on the currency and helping to widen an already swollen budget deficit.

Mursi's officials acknowledge the challenge. They say Egypt needs to create 700,000 new jobs a year, a target that will require growth of 6 percent a year or more. That level had been achieved in the last years of Mubarak's rule, but stalled after he was toppled.

The government last week formally asked the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a $4.8 billion loan to plug the financing gap in its budget and balance of payments.

In the last three months, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the Jeddah-based Islamic Development Bank have pledged Egypt more than $5 billion to help it stave off a balance of payments crisis, but the money will not provide a long-term fix for a hard-pressed nation of 82 million people.

A weaker pound would encourage exports and stop a drain on foreign reserves, which have fallen by more than half since the uprising, to $14.5 billion. Yet it would make tea, sugar and other imports bought by the poor even more expensive. Wheat, a big import and their main staple, is heavily subsidized.

NO TAXES

Mursi also ruled out any new taxes, at least in the short term. "There are no new taxes that will be imposed on the Egyptian people during this period," Mursi said.




"The tax system needs reviewing so that government support reaches those who need it, not those who don't," Mursi said. "There is a gradual plan so that taxpayers bear their true responsibility and pay what they truly owe."

These, he added, would be revisions and not new taxes.

"I am not talking about a sudden law that would impose a tax on the people to pay new taxes without study. We want to reduce the burden on the most impoverished. We want to support the poor and needy," he said.

The deficit in the new, 2012/13 budget is equivalent to 25 percent of total spending. The government has been relying on local banks for finance, but these banks have run low on funds to lend. This has pushed interest rates on some treasury bills up to almost 16 percent, further widening the deficit.

"We are trying by all means possible ... to reduce this deficit, and we envisage that within a few years, within three to five years, this deficit may decrease by a tangible amount.

"The situation now is more stable. The amount of reserves now at the central bank is above the limit of fear, above the red line," he said.

"The main axis is investment, encouraging investors, tourism, foreign trade, exports. That is what we are aiming for more than loans."

(Additional reporting by Samia Nakhoul and Edmund Blair; Writing by Patrick Werr and Marwa Awad; Editing by Michael Roddy)

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Reuters - Egypt president hires women, Christians as aides in nod to diversityBy Yasmine Saleh, Tamim Elyan and Omar FahmyAugust 27, 2012[Return to Top]

(Reuters) - Egypt's President Mohamed Mursi appointed three women and two Christians to his team of 21 aides, spokesman Yasser Ali said on Monday, a nod to diversity from a man who chose as many male non-Christians for cabinet as ousted predecessor Hosni Mubarak.

Mursi, Egypt's first freely elected president, promised at the time of his election in June that women and Christians would have a place in his presidential team.

Christians make up a tenth of Egypt's 82 million Sunni-Muslim majority and have long complained of discrimination in government and religious jobs under Mubarak who was overthrown in a popular uprising last year.

Women also say they are not fairly represented in parliament and government. During Mubarak's three decades in power, women and Christians were only ever given three ministerial posts at most. Mursi has picked two women and one Christian as ministers.

The four residential aides included Bakinam Rashad Hassan al-Sharkaway, a female professor, as the president's assistant for political affairs, and Samir Morkos Abdel Maseh, a Christian intellectual, as an assistant for democratic transformation.

Muslim Brotherhood leader Essam al-Hadad was picked as an assistant for foreign affairs and international cooperation, and the head of the Islamist ultra conservative Salafi Nour Party Emad Abdel Ghafour as an assistant for social interaction.



http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/27/us-egypt-president-assistants-idUSBRE87Q11T20120827

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/27/us-egypt-president-assistants-idUSBRE87Q11T20120827


The president also chose 17 consultants including two women and one Christian as well as former Islamist presidential candidate Mohamed Selim al-Awa, Egyptian poet and writer Farouk Gwaidah and the acting president of the Muslim Brotherhood Freedom and Justice Party Essam el-Erian.

Presidential spokesman Yasser Ali told journalists at Monday's news conference that the new aides' authorities will be announced later and that more aides may be taken on.

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TIME - Shades of Mubarak: Egyptian Journalists Chafe Under Media ControlsMohamed Morsy’s appointments and restrictions have led to howls of protests from Egyptian journalists. Has the Muslim Brotherhood taken a repressive turn?By Ashraf KhalilAugust 27, 2012[Return to Top]

Sabah Hamamou recalls hoping for the best and giving Mohamed Morsy the benefit of the doubt when the longtime Muslim Brotherhood official became Egypt’s first ever elected civilian President earlier this summer.

For Hamamou, a deputy business editor at the state-owned flagship daily newspaper al-Ahram, it was an opportunity to finally fix the institution to which she has dedicated 17 years of her professional life. Hamamou is one of the hardcore dissidents inside Egypt’s state media machine. Halfway through the January 2011 revolution that ousted President Hosni Mubarak from power, she and a handful of colleagues launched an internal revolt to chase out the Mubarak-appointed editor. So when Morsy came to power, she hoped for a fresh start and a new regime that would return the historic paper to something approaching respectability.



http://world.time.com/2012/08/28/shades-of-mubarak-egyptian-journalists-chafe-under-media-controls/

http://world.time.com/2012/08/28/shades-of-mubarak-egyptian-journalists-chafe-under-media-controls/


That optimism crumbled on Aug. 8 when the Shura Council — the upper house of parliament controlled by Morsy’s Muslim Brotherhood — announced dozens of new editors at a host of state-owned newspapers and magazines. The new al-Ahram editor, Abdel Nasser Salama, was just one of the hires that prompted a widespread revolt among Egyptian journalists.

The criticisms over Salama’s appointment started before he could even move into his new office. A former midlevel editor at al-Ahram, he gained notoriety as an inflammatory Mubarak-era columnist. One column argued that women shouldn’t run for parliament for their own good; another, written in the final week of the revolution, claimed that cars bearing foreign-diplomatic plates were ferrying food and supplies to the revolutionaries in Tahrir Square. Hamamou can barely contain her contempt for her new boss, calling him “barely qualified” and a “totally closed-minded person.” Efforts to contact Salama to respond to the criticism were unsuccessful.

The day after the appointments, a handful of columnists (all at privately owned papers) ran blank columns in protest — objecting to both the individual choices and the idea that Morsy’s government was adopting the Mubarak-era levers of media control. That turned out to be just the opening salvo in a widening conflict that has Morsy’s young government accused of suppressing free speech.

A pair of prominent government critics now face charges of incitement to violence and the purely Mubarak-era crime of “insulting the President.” Tawfiq Okasha, a firebrand anti-Brotherhood television host, has had the channel he owns temporarily shut down. And police raided the offices of the privately owned newspaper al-Dostour, confiscated the Aug. 11 edition of the paper and charged its editor in chief, Islam Afify, with incitement.




In fairness, both Okasha’s channel and al-Dostour under Afify’s leadership test the limits of reasonable public expression. Okasha is frequently compared to American television screamer Glenn Beck; al-Dostour’s editorial that provoked the raid warned that a Brotherhood-led Egypt would see “the destruction of the citizen’s dignity in front of his family and his children and the rape of his private property rights.” It concluded by stopping short of calling for a military coup.

Critics of the Brotherhood’s crackdown have often taken pains to distance themselves from the defendants in question. Independent newspaper publisher and human-rights activist Hisham Kassem has this to say about Okasha: “He’s hilarious. He’s cursed out half the country, including me a couple times. He’s completely crazy.”

Nevertheless, Kassem still warned that the Brotherhood had already proved itself too prickly and thin-skinned to rule responsibly over a raucous post-Mubarak Egypt. “They’re a quasi-military organization,” he said. “Internally there’s no such thing as criticism of your superiors.”

Spokesmen for Morsy and the Brotherhood have claimed that the prosecutions of Okasha and Afify weren’t ordered by his office and instead were the work of independent prosecutors and judges. Either way, Morsy’s Egypt has a very different atmosphere than Mubarak’s, and segments of the postrevolutionary population have no intention of giving up such hard-won freedoms. On Aug. 23, about 1,500 protesters gathered in a public square near Tahrir and chanted against the government’s recent media moves. One protester held up a sign in Arabic that said: “Insulting the President Is One of the Rights We Gained in the Revolution.”

And not all Egyptian journalists are pessimistic about the current media landscape. Shahira Amin, a state television anchor who famously resigned from her post in the midst of the revolution, said the situation at state television has measurably improved since Morsy took office. “I don’t see that there’s directives coming from




above anymore,” she said. “You can’t say there’s no freedom of expression. We’ve come such a long way.”

That optimism is not shared by Hamamou, the dissident editor of al-Ahram. She sounds genuinely defeated — not just by the naming of the new editor but by the fact that only a small handful of her colleagues were willing to join her in an office protest against the appointment.

She believes she has paid the price for her outspokenness, saying she has been professionally marginalized inside the newspaper — given a steady paycheck and nothing to do. She used her free time to write a book called Diary of an al-Ahram Journalist, but fears that title might not be accurate for much longer. “It’s the first time I’ve said to myself, ‘Maybe it’s time to leave,’” she said.

Khalil is a Cairo-based journalist and author of Liberation Square: Inside the Egyptian Revolution and the Rebirth of a Nation.

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Ahram - Political, economic stability drive Egypt marketEGX30 approaches 5,400-point mark as investors are heartened by $4.8bn IMF loan and President Morsi's strategic visit to ChinaBy Ahram OnlineAugust 28, 2012[Return to Top]

Egypt's tentative steps towards political and economic stability were reflected in Tuesday's positive stock market performance, which saw the benchmark EGX30 index rise by 0.8 per cent to reach 5,325 points.

"It's a breakpoint; the index might surpass 5,400 points on Wednesday, indicating the positive investment atmosphere," Mohamed Metwally, equity trader at Cairo-based Prime Securities, told Ahram Online.

Metwally went on to say that investor optimism appeared to have finally been restored, with Tuesday's trade session witnessing the highest daily turnover – some LE796 million – since March.

The broader-based EGX70 index, meanwhile, rose by 1.1 per cent for the day.

Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi is hoping to bolster the national economy with a $4.8 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund and a strategic visit to China, from which he hopes to lure both investment and tourists to Egypt.

Even though foreign investors constituted net sellers on Tuesday, offloading some LE17 million worth of stock, they nevertheless injected more than LE200 million into the market via trading. "This is a sign of confidence," Metwally commented.

Egyptian investors, meanwhile, were net buyers on Tuesday to the tune of some LE56 million.



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http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/3/12/51478/Business/Economy/Political,-economic-stability-drive-Egypt-market.aspx


All the market's blue-chip shares ended Tuesday's trading in the green, led by Commercial International Bank – Egypt's largest private bank – which rose by 1.9 per cent to record the day's highest turnover (LE131 million).

Orascom Telecom and Orascom Construction Industries also saw gains of 1.6 per cent and 0.9 per cent respectively.

The country's biggest steel producer, Ezz Steel, meanwhile, rose by 0.5 per cent on news that its former chairman, Ahmed Ezz – currently serving a jail term for financial offences – is no longer being accused of monopolistic practices.

Luxury property developers Palm hills and SODIC, for their part, rose by 0.4 per cent and 1.3 per cent respectively, while the Talaat Mostafa Group fell by 1 per cent for the day.

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The Washington Post - Egypt’s new leaders must accept realityBy Dennis RossAugust 19, 2012[Return to Top]

Dennis Ross, a counselor at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, was a special assistant to President Obama on the Middle East and a senior director on the National Security Council staff from July 2009 to December 2011.

A new reality and an alternative reality are shaping up in Egypt. President Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood appear firmly in control . Morsi seized on the killing of 16 Egyptian soldiers in the Sinai early this month — an embarrassment for the military and particularly the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces ( SCAF ) — to remove the most senior military leaders from office. He also unilaterally amended the March 2011 constitution declaration and gave his office executive and legislative powers. In short, with no hint of resistance from the military, Morsi has imposed civilian leadership on Egypt.

Many see Morsi’s move to control the SCAF — he sacked Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi; military chief of staff Sami Anan; and the heads of Egypt’s army, navy and air force — as finally giving Egypt’s revolution the chance to remove key remnants of the Mubarak regime and fulfill its promise. Others, particularly non-Islamists, are more prone to see recent actions as the Muslim Brotherhood removing any checks on its power.

Given some of the other moves that Morsi and those around him have made, there is reason to be concerned. Morsi has appointed a new minister of information, Salah Abdul Maqsud; he, too, comes from the Muslim Brotherhood and actively supports the move to replace 50 leading editors and journalists. Charges have been filed against the editor of the independent opposition newspaperal-



http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dennis-ross-egypts-new-leaders-must-accept-reality/2012/08/19/46e60810-e8ad-11e1-936a-b801f1abab19_story.html

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Dustour for insulting the president. It is probably no accident that the state media’s tone has changed markedly in the past week — and is far more favorable toward Morsi.

None of this means that Egypt’s path of change is foreordained. It does mean that the president, who has largely surrounded himself with members of the Muslim Brotherhood or sympathizers, dominates all of Egypt’s institutions of power. He and the Brotherhood will find it hard to escape responsibility for whatever happens in Egypt. The country faces daunting economic challenges; it will need significant outside assistance and private investment. Morsi and the Brotherhood are seeking outside support for their “renaissance plan” to revitalize the economy; after they resisted the conditions for an International Monetary Fund agreement when they were not in power, Morsi and the Brotherhood now appear eager to not only gain the loan but also to borrow more than the $3.2 billion that the IMF was prepared to offer conditionally.

In this respect, Morsi and the Brotherhood seem to recognize reality. But in another important regard, they appear determined to deny it. Consider that Morsi denied sending Israeli President Shimon Peres a response to a note that Peres had written him after news of the correspondence provoked a backlash in the Brotherhood over Morsi having any such contact with Israel. What makes this particularly noteworthy is that Peres’s office did not release Morsi’s letter publicly until after checking with the Egyptians to make sure it was okay to do so. The outrage among the Brotherhood led Egypt’s president to publicly deny a fact. Similarly, consider that the Brotherhood immediately blamed the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence organization, for the Sinai attack that killed the Egyptian soldiers — something that the Brotherhood knew to be untrue.

What conclusions should be drawn about an organization that cannot admit the truth? That insists on living in its own reality? If nothing else, it’s clear that the group the Brotherhood is wedded to




its ideology and cannot admit anything that might call its basic philosophy into question. But the United States and others should not accommodate the Brotherhood’s alternative reality. This is not to say that we have to agree on everything. Policy differences are understandable — but it is not acceptable to deny reality and foster a narrative and policies based on untruths and fictions.

Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood should know this. Egypt’s president and people should also know that we are prepared to mobilize the international community, and global financial institutions, to help Egypt — but that we will only do so if Egypt’s government is prepared to play by a set of rules grounded in reality and key principles. They must respect the rights of minorities and women; they must accept political pluralism and the space for open political competition; and they must respect their international obligations, including the terms of Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel.

The record to date is not good: News reports suggest that more than 100,000 Coptic Christians have left Egypt ; there have been new efforts to intimidate the media, and Morsi has moved armored forces into the Sinai without first notifying the Israelis — a requirement of the peace treaty. The administration’s position needs to be clear: If this behavior continues, U.S. support, which will be essential for gaining international economic aid and fostering investment, will not be forthcoming. Softening or fuzzing our response at this point might be good for the Muslim Brotherhood, but it won’t be good for Egypt.

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u.s. egypt business council€¦ · web viewa new customs law was drafted and sent to the minister...

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