What condition is the Egyptian economy in?
I think overall the news is encouraging, despite the extraneous what economists would call exogenous pressures on the Egyptian economy. Theyve had a pretty good growth rate and most of the analysts are revising their estimates upwards slightly. That is important because the growth rate in the economy, of course, is slower than the demographic growth rate. The more that gap can be narrowed, and better yet that the growth rate surpasses the growth of the labor force, [the more] you have a chance to improve the overall living standards of people. If you look at EFG Hermes estimates, for example, that have come out recently, they are predicting [growth] for 2003-04 in the 4 percent or slightly above range. That is consistent with our own estimates. The government of Egypt itself says it needs to be around 7 percent. That is a very rapid rate even for a middle-income developing economy. To take the higher end of those kinds of economies, you have China and India at around 10 percent. The pr
