Etudes par pays volume 2, PDF, 346 p., 1,4 Mo - Femise

11873_02 Study D2: Poverty, Informal Sector, Health and Labour
As to how the Euro-Partnership Agreement could and will affect the
Egyptian economy, there are both positive and negative repercussions.
Positive effects of the Euro-Partnership Agreement include the wider market
scope for Egyptian exports, the access to modern machinery and equipments
at relatively lower costs, the possible benefit of the Industry Modernization
Program on the domestic factories, possible inflow of European investments
to Egypt.
As to the negative effects of the EPA are numerous, but the most important
of which is the fear of the inflow of manufactured products to Egypt, which
could threaten the domestic production and employment.
Finally, the Egyptian economy is now in a state of change, more emphasis
is being directed towards strengthening the private sector, promotion of
exports, augmenting the participation of the civil society, deregulation and
simplification of the laws and rules that govern transactions, improving the
investment climate and raising the quality of social services and their
regional coverage.
However, more serious and comprehensive policies should be designed to
deal with the questions of unemployment, inflation, the slow movement
towards more inequality of income distribution. In fact solving gradually the
problem of unemployment could be a way to reduce income inequality
between rural and urban areas, between the different regions of Egypt, and
between the different income/expenditure strata.
Improving the investment climate for both the large and the small
companies, the domestic and the foreign companies, could be a contributing
factor to help raise the share of investments to GDP to more acceptable
levels. Investment policies should also take into consideration the
reallocation of investments towards highly populated and poor regions that
suffer from neglect.
Another policy goal should be the concern with raising the efficiency and
competitiveness of the production (industry and agriculture) sectors and
with improving the quality of the service and trade activities. The
globalization process could cause a substantial damage especially to the
small and medium–scale industries, which operated for a long time in a
protected environment. Therefore, special efficiency-raising programs
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