Economy of Egypt

The economy of Egypt was highly centralized under President Gamal Abdel Nasser. In the 1990s, a series of International Monetary Fund arrangements, coupled with massive external debt relief resulting from Egypt's participation in the Gulf War coalition, helped Egypt improve its macroeconomic performance. Since 2000, the pace of structural reforms, including fiscal, monetary policies, privatization and new business legislations, helped Egypt move towards a more market-oriented economy and prompted increased foreign investment. The reforms and policies have strengthened macroeconomic annual growth results which averaged 5% annually but the government largely failed to equitably share the wealth and the benefits of growth have failed to trickle down to improve economic conditions for the broader population, especially with the growing problem of unemployment and underemployment among youth under the age of 30 years. A youth protest demanding more political freedoms, fighting corruption and delivering improved living standards forced President Mubarak to step down on 11 February 2011. After the revolution Egypt’s foreign exchange reserves fell from $36 billion in December 2010 to only $16.3 billion in January 2012, also in February 2012 Standard & Poor’s rating agency lowered the Egypt’s credit rating from B+ to B in the long term.