Ayoon Wa Azan (Egypt without Talaat Harb)

Two years after the popular uprising in Egypt, and a year after the Muslim Brotherhood took over the presidency, the Egyptian economy has fallen into the abyss, and the rulers of Egypt do not have a ladder to help the country climb out of this pit. Instead, they are only digging deeper. The current situation reflects the truth of what I heard from Major General Omar Suleiman, who told me one day: Jihad, we put these people in prison. But I don’t remember there were ever any economic experts among them. Is there no one left in Egypt of the caliber of renowned Egyptian economist Talaat Harb? If the Muslim Brotherhood cannot find local experts able to draft solutions for the country’s problems, then the new administration must seek the help of foreign experts. If these succeed, the people would still not know them, and the credit for the success can be reaped by the Brotherhood who would gain popularity among the people who benefit from economic recovery. In the meantime, there has been a wheat crisis even before locusts swarmed in Sinai and ravaged agricultural areas near Rafah. Foreign currency reserves dropped and then rose to US$ 18 billion, still less than half of the reserves that Egypt held before the previous regime was ousted. The Egyptian pound is suffering, and while its official exchange rate is 7 to the dollar, the rate hit 8 for the dollar in the black market, and today, it is about 7.5 pounds for the dollar. The Egyptian stock exchange used to trade at a volume of about one billion Egyptian pounds each day, which declined to 250 million pounds today. Furthermore, there is no significant buying or selling taking place, and the stock market index fell from 12 thousand in 2008 to 5 thousand now. I also read about losses in the iron, steel, and textile sectors and thousands of factories that remain closed. There is constant talk about creating a climate that can encourage foreign investment, but that has yet to be translated into decisions to encourage foreign investors. The latter hear about problems with local businessmen, and think twice before jumping into an unstable market. The above is information available to Egyptian citizens and investors, and is accurate and documented. As a result of all these developments, Standard & Poor’s, the US rating agency, downgraded Egypt’s credit rating for the sixth time since the fall of Hosni Mubarak, from B- to CCC+ for long-term credit rating, and its short-term rating from B to C. S&P said that the reason for its move was that the Egyptian authorities have failed to come up with a clear strategy to address the country’s internal and external financial needs. All this talk brings me back to the only proposal which I included in this column, about hiring foreign financial experts, if there are no Egyptians to do the task, to develop a financial strategy for the country that can be trustworthy to both Egyptians and foreign investors. I never claimed to be an economic expert, and for this reason, I cited facts and limited myself to making a brief suggestion. Aside from the economy, there are other problems, for example the security collapse. Recently, six policemen and a border guard were kidnapped by militants who wanted to swap them for their comrades who had attacked a police station in July 2011, and then released them after mediation. I hope the regime did not cave in to the demands of the kidnappers, because they are terrorists. The regime, any regime, cannot deserve its name if it commands no respect. So perhaps the new rulers of Egypt can find wisdom in the views of Emir Bashir Shahab III, the ally of Ibrahim Pasha, who repressed his opponents and rivals. When people reproached him for that, he said, “Oppression has safer consequences than laxity in ruling.” We want Egypt and every Arab country to be ruled fairly and never otherwise. But we call on President Mohamed Mursi to be strict with all kidnappers, to deter them from even thinking about carrying out similar acts in the future. If he shows firmness, then perhaps Tahrir Square will once again become Cairo’s beating heart, rather than a space for crime and sexual harassment. President Mohamed Mursi called on investors during the Doha summit to return to Egypt. Tomorrow, Prime Minister Hisham Qandil will repeat this call at the World Economic Forum conference at the Dead Sea. Such calls are unappetizing invitations, and the inviters perhaps understand that the invitees will not come. What is required instead is fostering a climate conducive to investing in Egypt, and then calling on Arab and foreign investors to come in. Indeed, those will not come until they know what inviters have to offer. The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent or reflect the editorial policy of Arabstoday.