Introduction

December 2011 - Despite impressive foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows to Egypt between 2005 and 2008 peaking at nearly $12 billion in 2007 and a GDP real growth rate of over 7% in 2008, unemployment rates remained high at an average of 9.5% between 1991 and 2010. What can be described as a jobless economic growth continued as the gap between rich and poor widened drastically, creating limited enclaves of wealth concentrated in the hands of a small minority of businessmen, industrialists and tycoons in control of vast sectors of the economy. Rapid deregulation, liberalization and ...