Most Popular White Papers
Content provided in partnership with
An unequal struggle
National Review, Jan 31, 1986
An Unequal Struggle
During his first four years in office President Hosni Mubarak has struggled mightily to redress Egypt's economic balance. But, as he begins the last two years of his term, the battle seems to be a losing one. Of all his problems, the demographic arithmetic is the most threatening. The Egyptian population is growing by 2.7 per cent a year and is close to fifty million, which means that every ten months there are a million more mouths to feed. At the same time the country is falling behind in its attempt to increase agricultural acreage and therefore grow a greater proportion of its food, of which it now must import 50 per cent in contrast to the exportable surpluses it used to produce. Although a considerable amount of land has been reclaimed from the desert for cultivation, more has been lost to the growing urban sprawl of Cairo and Alexandria. The news is bad, too, on the financial front. Receipts from both oil exports and the Suez Canal tolls have fallen considerably. Money repatriated by Egyptian nationals abroad has also declined. The Egyptian pound suffers from strong inflationary pressure and was subjected to a de facto devaluation of 40 per cent in the first eight months of last year. Even more alarming, Egyptian credit has begun to lose its appeal in the international market. Indeed, it is widely expected that the Egyptian international debt will have to be rescheduled soon because of doubt about the country's ability to maintain its current rate of repayment.
COPYRIGHT 1986 National Review, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning
