NCCTs from the Dark Continent: Egypt

Africa is a continent that fascinates and horrifies in equal measure.With its wild and beautiful landscape, its variety of cultures, its unrivalled flora and fauna, it has attracted visitors for centuries. With these gifts, however, come problems – ethnic unrest and extreme poverty among them. African countries, seeing the prosperity of countries in other parts of the world, long to emulate their economic success, but sometimes their efforts to modernise cause as many problems as they solve.Two very different African countries – Egypt and Nigeria – recently found their financial services sectors under scrutiny, when they were added to the list of non-cooperative countries and territories drawn up by the Financial Action Task Force.This month Sue Grossey examines Egypt.

Sue Grossey

Egypt

Geography and economy

Egypt covers an area of just over a million square kilometres of northern Africa, bordering the Mediterranean Sea between Libya and the Gaza Strip. Although it was made nominally independent of the United Kingdom in 1922, Egypt did not acquire full sovereignty until after World War II.The completion of the Aswan High Dam in 1971 – and the resultant Lake Nasser – have affected the role of the River Nile in the agriculture and ecology of Egypt. A rapidly growing population (the largest in the Arab world), limited arable land and dependence on the Nile all continue to stretch resources and stress society. Monetary pressures have eased, however, with higher oil prices (at least until recently), a rebound in tourism, and a series of mini-devaluations of the Egyptian pound. The development of a gas export market is a major plus factor in future growth, and the government has introduced wide-ranging economic reform and made massive investment in communications and physical infrastructure. President Mohammed Hosni Mubarak has been the Egyptian chief of state since 1981.