ABSTRACT

We were out somewhere in the middle of Egypt’s sandy Western Desert, south of the Qattara Depression and north of the Great Sea of Sand, when my companion, one of the three top personalities in the international oil industry, said, ‘In my view the Egyptian authorities and people are making a mistake when they attribute current economic problems to a lack of potential or natural resources. In fact, Egypt is rich in both; what it lacks is another vital element – work!’ He paused for a moment, then added,

You know how much I love Egypt and how badly I want to see its economy thrive, yet I must tell you that, because of the political situation over the past 30 years you have lost the ‘art of work’, and without that you cannot hope to make progress. I recently went through some reports by prominent economic and political analysts in the USA and Western Europe. To my surprise, they all reached the same conclusion, namely, that Egypt’s income today is derived from five sources (all unrelated to the ‘art of work’): remittances from Egyptians working abroad; oil revenues; revenues from the Suez Canal; tourism; and cotton production. Except for cotton, there is virtually no added value on these income sources. The work performed by Egyptians abroad does not count, being part of the production process of one or more of those countries, and regarding oil, the Suez Canal and tourism, your work is only a marginal source of the revenue they generate.