Tag: economics

Google in the Middle East

As posted before, google has based its Middle East activities in Egypt, to the surprise of observers who expected the search engine would select Dubai.

I spoke to the regional manager of google, Sherif Iskander, a few days ago, and he told me that it was simply the size of Egypt that has attracted google here (time zones also were an issue).

Egypt has the region’s largest number of internet users as well as small and medium entreprises (and advertisers), the market segment that google’s business model is based upon. The booming tourism industry is a major client for google, and financial services which are underdeveloped in Egypt could become another major source of revenues soon.

But google can only sell its products if there’s content. Less then 1% of the internet’s content is in Arabic, although it is one of the world’s most spoken languages.

The research that Iskander referred to showed that 85% of the region’s internet users would in fact prefer content in Arabic. Google is thus working on creating more content. Until now, it has arabized its search function, its news portal and its email service. It also offers translation tools from English to Arabic and vice versa.

It also hopes to lower the significant cost barrier to local content, by offering advertising tools that automatically generate ads on local websites.

As access to the internet improves across the region – in Egypt ADSL prices came down recently – now it’s limited PC penetration and the lack of local content that is preventing the region from seeing higher numbers of internet users, it seems.

New LE1 Coins

I read a while ago somewhere that the govt was planning to issue these new 50 Piasters and LE1 coins to replace the paper money notes circulating in the market. I’ve just come accross the LE1 coin yesterday, with King Tut’s face on it.
I tried taking a pic of those coins with my mob phone, but quality isn’t good.

NEW LE1 Coins

I’m curious to know what fellow Egyptians and Cairo Arabists think of those coins? Do you like them?
I mean, I’m kinda conflicted… The paper money notes circulating in the market have tended to be FILTHY. The Central Bank doesn’t recycle them as fast as they should. So I guess coins are better in that regards. But at the same time coins are not easy to carry around in wallets. Gotta buy a purse for them or something?.. Donno.. what do you think..?

Oh, and has anybody seen the 50 PT coins? I haven’t seen those yet. Pitch us a pic if you have one.

Scissors in Egypt

It’s not exactly the topic of the day, but privatization (‘As’assa, as many Egyptians refer to it, mixing Arabic for scissors ‘As and privatization Khas’khassa), will continue to be an issue in Egypt, as this summer we can rather see the limits the government still faces in the program.This week the Ministry of Investment stated that it would not sell shares in important companies such as Egyptian Iron and Steel or Egypt Aluminium Company. Ten days before, the government stepped up its efforts to open Egypt’s National Railways to private investment. But the sharp debate in parliament casts light on the increasing resistance it is meeting in its privatization program, in particular in transportation, probably the sector of the Egyptian economy that needs modernization and investment like no other.

In my contribution to the annual review “Egypt in the year 2005� published by the French research centre in Cairo CEDEJ (which by the way contains excellent contributions, amongst others, on the Coptic question, the brotherhood and the fate of the Egyptian health reform) on the Egyptian privatization program during 2005, I argued that the government met surprisingly few criticism in public for its revival of the privatization program.

While hopefully the basic conclusions of my contribution (see below) are still valid, … Continue reading Scissors in Egypt

Economic losses in Lebanon

The Neue Zürcher Zeitung’s excellent Cairo correspondent Kristina Bergmann today writes on the economic losses to Lebanon as a result of the current war.

She refers to a report by Lebanon’s state-run Council for Development and Reconstruction (CDR) which argues that today’s losses are much more substantial then those the country suffered during its civil war as the Israeli air-force has systematically targeted Lebanon’s infrastructure, while the civil war was characterized by small-scale wars between different groups. CDR puts losses at $2.5bn, while damages to infrastructure have reached $785mn, according to CDR.

I’m also translating some paragraphs of Bergmann’s article:

When Siniora became Prime Minister in June 2005, public debt stood at $36bn and the trade deficit reached $2bn. Lebanon’s new government realized that reform was inevitable. A plan “revival of the economy� was drafted. It aimed at privatizing the state’s power station and its telecom, at raising taxes and at increasing control over funds – more precisely: the fight against corruption. With the beginning of the war, the plan was without further ado dubbed “plan for reconstruction�. Translated, this meant that corruption in trade in industry will flourish again, Lebanon’s former Minister of Finance Georges Corm recently said.

When in fall 2001 Arab capital feared being frozen in the US, Lebanon became the favourite place for Arab financiers. Now, however, Golf Arabs are withdrawing their money discreetly but very quickly. To where will they transfer their capital which has been increased by the explosion of oil prices? One destination are “stable� and economically open countries of the region such as Egypt, Morocco and Turkey, financial experts say. Is this arguably the reason, why those countries are reluctant in criticising Israel’s campaign?

The war on Lebanon and the battle for oil

I received this interesting article form my friend Ryan O’Kane, a postgraduate historian in London, who specializes in the strategic framework behind US foreign interventions. The article, followed by Ryan’s comment, exposes some facts that can in part explain the current Israeli war on Lebanon, with some more far-reaching contribution to Rice’s recently announced (Not-That)-New-Middle-East plan.

The War on Lebanon and the Battle for Oil
by Michel Chossudovsky
July 26, 2006
GlobalResearch.ca

“Is there a relationship between the bombing of Lebanon and the inauguration of the World’s largest strategic pipeline, which will channel more a million barrels of oil a day to Western markets?

Virtually unnoticed, the inauguration of the Ceyhan-Tblisi-Baku (BTC) oil pipeline, which links the Caspian Sea to the Eastern Mediterranean, took place on the 13th of July, at the very outset of the Israeli sponsored bombings of Lebanon…

The BTC pipeline totally bypasses the territory of the Russian Federation. It transits through the former Soviet republics of Azerbaijan and Georgia, both of which have become US “protectorates”, firmly integrated into a military alliance with the US and NATO. Moreover, both Azerbaijan and Georgia have longstanding military cooperation agreements with Israel. In 2005, Georgian companies received some $24 million in military contracts funded out of U.S. military assistance to Israel under the so-called ‘Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program’….

The bombing of Lebanon is part of a carefully planned and coordinated military road map. The extension of the war into Syria and Iran has already been contemplated by US and Israeli military planners. This broader military agenda is intimately related to strategic oil and oil pipelines. It is supported by the Western oil giants which control the pipeline corridors. In the context of the war on Lebanon, it seeks Israeli territorial control over the East Mediterranean coastline.�

Continue reading The war on Lebanon and the battle for oil

Kifaya report on corruption

Yes, it came out a while back, but I thought I’d put up a PDF version with all the font problems resolved for people who had trouble reading the MS Word version. I have merely skimmed it so can’t really comment on it, except to say: Kifaya people, presentation counts. A little clearer formatting and a table of contents on a 200+ page report would help encourage more people to read it.

Click on the thumbnail below to download.

Kifaya Corruption Report
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Gas prices are up

Since last night I’ve been receiving news/rumours about an expected increase in gas prices starting from midnight. I haven’t left home since last night, so I didn’t check out any of the neighboring petrol stations, but Al-Ahram has officially announced it.

While the 80 Octane petrol’s price remained the same, the 90 Octane’s has increased by 30 Piasters per litre, reaching LE 1.3 for the litre. The litre of solar, low quality fuel used for transportation trucks mainly, has reached 75 Piasters, after it was 60 P.

The rise in fuel prices will inevitably lead to a drastic increase in the prices of EVERYTHING else in the coming days. I wonder if another “1977 Bread Intifada” is on the way….

Gaza in the dark

Interesting article in CounterPunch on the impact of the destruction of Gaza’s power plant on its future economic growth:

By bombing the plant, the Israelis cut power to 65 percent of the Gaza Strip, a region that is one of the most impoverished in the Middle East. By destroying the plant, the Israelis also decimated one of Palestine’s most valuable companies, the Palestine Electric Company, whose shares are traded on the Palestine Stock Exchange. Further, the Israelis have destroyed any chance for industry in Gaza to grow.

It is axiomatic among the world’s economies: as electricity consumption increase, so does wealth. Gazans are impoverished, in large part, because they don’t have enough electricity. Residents in Gaza consume just 654 kilowatt hours of electricity per year or about one-tenth of what Israelis consume. The average Israeli consumes about 6,183 kilowatt hours of power per year, a rate that places Israel 27th among the world’s countries in terms of power use. By comparison the residents of Gaza rank number 136 among the world’s countries in per capita power use, a status that places them behind residents of Peru.

Not to mention, of course, the costs to businesses, students, traders, etc. Incidentally, kudos to Egypt for pledging to give Gaza free electricity.

Also check out MERIP’s new online piece, Gaza in the Vise, for a detailed look at the humanitarian impact of Israel’s war, especially on children.

For Western Union, “Every Mohammed is a terrorist now?”

Arabist reader and dear friend SP sent me this report on Western Union…

Western Union profiles Muslim names
AP Jul. 2, 2006
Money transfer agencies like Western Union have delayed or blocked thousands of cash deliveries on suspicion of terrorist connections simply because senders or recipients have names like Mohammed or Ahmed, company officials said.
In one example, an Indian driver here said Western Union prevented him from sending US$120 to a friend at home this month because the recipient’s name was Mohammed. Continue reading For Western Union, “Every Mohammed is a terrorist now?”