US Economic Aid in Egypt by Dina Jadallah

Author:Dina Jadallah [Jadallah, Dina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Business & Economics, International, General
ISBN: 9781350989641
Google: MFu1zQEACAAJ
Publisher: I.B. Tauris
Published: 2016-01-15T01:12:27+00:00

The free market economic context of the constitution

The proposed amendments came in the context of the final stage of economic reforms by the Mubarak regime. Economic reform programmes were initiated without a debate that would build a national consensus over their scope and ramifications. As discussed in previous chapters, the first phase of reforms occurred between 1991 and 1998, under the IMF-sponsored stabilisation programme. Between 1998 and 2004, the US and other donors, in cooperation with the Egyptian government, focused reforms around structuring the trade, legal and institutional frameworks for fuller integration in the US-dominated free market. Egypt signed several trade agreements at that time: the Trade and Investment Framework Agreement with the United States in 1999; a free trade agreement with the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa in 2000; the Agadir free trade agreement with Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia in 2004; the EU Association Agreement that came into force in June 2004 and participation in the WTO in 2004.72 After the appointment of the Ahmed Nazif government, new business-friendly laws were introduced. Egypt also signed the QIZ Agreement with the US and Israel in December 2004. In 2005, a free trade agreement with Turkey was signed. Importantly, the pace of privatisation was accelerated so that between mid-2004 and mid-2006, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and public lands were privatised. As we also saw in Chapter 2, an extensive financial sector reform plan at the end of 2004 resulted in the privatisation of large segments of the banking sector.73

The last set of constitutional amendments officialized the degree to which the Mubarak regime had become aligned into the free market model. In a sense, the amendments were an acknowledgement of current reality, a post facto declaration of aid-assisted economic transformation. In addition, the amendments reflected the rising influence of elite business people in politics. The number of business people in the People's Assembly grew from 31 out of 350 in 1995 to 77 in 2000. The post-Nazif People's Assembly included 68 business people. In addition, business people gave substantial grants to the NDP (as donations) in the 2005 parliamentary elections.74 Regime-linked top business people, including members of the Egyptian Federation of Industries and the US-Egypt Business Council (established in 1995), may have been the only segment of the population to have possibly debated with the ruling elite. According to the website of the US–Egypt Business Council, it is ‘the foremost advocacy organisation representing America's leading companies doing business with Egypt’.75 It consists of senior executives of US companies who are major investors in Egypt. They work with a counterpart Egyptian President's Council, through bi-annual meetings and seven subcommittees. They ‘partner with organisations working in Egypt to promote council priorities and monitor ongoing economic, legislative and political developments impacting member interests’. Importantly, they ‘conduct policy missions to Egypt to advance members’ priorities in meetings with senior Egyptian officials and business leaders’, including the prime minister and other ministers of finance, trade and industry, investment, petroleum, electricity, energy and communications and information technology.

Most

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.