The Arab Republic
of Egypt is located on the northeastern coast of Africa, and borders the Mediterranean Sea
between Libya and the Gaza Strip. Egypt is basically a desert nation; only four percent of
the country's total land area of 1 million km2 is arable. Egypt's most notable
geographical feature is the Nile River, and almost 99 percent of Egypt's population live
in the Nile River valley and the fertile Nile Delta, north of the capital, Cairo.
Egypt is the most
populous nation in the Arab world; the current population growth rate is 1.95 percent per
year, and 36 percent of Egyptians are under 15 years of age. Islam is the major religious
and cultural force in Egypt, and about 94 percent of the population are Muslim, mostly
Sunni. An important Christian minority makes up approximately six percent of the
population. Although more than half the Egyptian population is rural, a shortage of jobs
exists in the countryside, and rapid urbanization has taken place over the past several
decades. As a result, greater Cairo's population doubled between 1970 and 1980.
Egypt's natural
resource base is extremely limited. Prior to the 1952 revolution, which overthrew Egypt's
monarchy and established the present republic, the Egyptian economy was based primarily on
farming. Today, agriculture contributes about one third of Egypt's gross domestic product
(GDP) and Egypt, once self-sufficient in food, now imports nearly one half of its
foodstuffs. Since the '50s, the Egyptian State had taken upon itself most of the national
industrial production, and the establishment of prices and quotas in many sectors. A
complex welfare system co-existed with a strict control of the civil society. Most foreign exchange
earnings were determined by external factors (oil exports, tourism, foreign aid, worker
remittances, and so on).
In 1960, Egypt embarked on a program of
structural adjustment, whose key objective is to create favourable conditions for a
decentralized and outward-looking economy. The reform and privatization of public
enterprises, price and trade liberalization, investment and energy policies, and reform of
the banking and exchange system are all under way. The Egyptian government has established
a Social Fund for Development to ease the negative impacts of economic reforms on its
poorest citizens. The fund is supporting community infrastructure and services, and
creating jobs through support for small enterprises and labour-intensive activities. The
government is also trying to emphasize equity in its social spending priorities; for
example, with regard to access to education.
In 1998, Egypt had
over 3.9 million connected lines resulting in a telephone density of 6.04 lines per
hundred of population.
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