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Yes, Egypt has faced significant financial challenges. Recently, there have been substantial investments from the UAE, purchasing a city for $35 billion, with

by netdur 2y ago

Yes, Egypt has faced significant financial challenges. Recently, there have been substantial investments from the UAE, purchasing a city for $35 billion, with potential similar investments from Saudi Arabia. Despite these inflows, concerns about how these funds are managed, particularly regarding military influence, remain prevalent

akira2501 2y ago
> from the UAE, purchasing a city for $35 billion Ras al-Hekma for those curious. It sounds like a terrible deal on all sides. It's a bad vehicle for UAE money, it leaves Egypt with "35% guaranteed profits" on a planned city, and the UN is busily green washing the entire affair to curry political favor. > concerns about how these funds are managed Egypt seems completely squeezed. It's uniquely impacted by both the war on Ukraine and Gaza with the IMF having to step in and give them $3 billion later upgraded to $8 billion in emergency relief. The money is going to evaporate. My concern is there won't be any local economy or businesses left under these policies when it all dries up.
- alephnerd 2y ago
  > Ras al-Hekma for those curious. It sounds like a terrible deal on all sides It actually makes sense. Most tourism in Egypt comes from Eastern Europeans (especially Russians and Ukrainians), for whom Sharm al-Sheikh is their Cabo. If you've looked at a map, it's also located in Sinai, where there's an ongoing Muslim Brotherhood turned IS insurgency (which also enflamed neighboring Gaza). Moving resort tourism to much more defensible Ras al-Hekma works, and the UAE being the New York of the region had enough capital to co-invest to develop it (also didn't hurt to help line up politicians pockets). And Egypt (with UAE, Saudi, and some Indian capital) has been building out alternatives like Siwa. I actually chatted a eco-lodge owner from Siwa while I was stuck at a layover in Istanbul Airport - a lot of their tourism it now targeting the domestic market, Gulf market, some western hippy types, and Indians. > My concern is there won't be any local economy or businesses left under these policies when it all dries up The Egyptian economy is stabilizing and UAE, Saudi, Chinese, and Indian money is flowing in as FDI [0], and pushing reforms accordingly. Heck, Egypt's GDP Growth Rate in FY22 was 6.6% according to the World Bank, and has always been between 2.5-6% post-coup. [0] - https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/can-egypts-economic-overhaul-stave-crisis https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/can-egypts-economic-overhaul-st...
  - resolutebat 2y ago
    Ras el-Hekma is to the west of Alexandria, nowhere close to the Sinai.
    - gorlilla 2y ago
      They said Sharm al-Sheikh was in Sinai.
  - bluish29 2y ago
    > where there's an ongoing Muslim Brotherhood turned IS insurgency (which also enflamed neighboring Gaza). Is that Google AI search hallucinations? MB does not have anything to do with Sinai. There were insurgency fueled by several factors (some of them related to your normal normal Military Dictatorship) > If you've looked at a map, it's also located in Sinai I don't think you looked yourself in the map. It is located on the other side of Egypt. To the west of Alexandria. > Moving resort tourism to much more defensible Ras al-Hekma works More defensible? You really need to cross almost all of northern Egypt (practically invading it) to reach Ras- Elhekma from Sinai. > And Egypt (with UAE, Saudi, and some Indian capital) has been building out alternatives like Siwa I am not sure if by building out alternative you mean developing tourism destination because Siwa as a place where people live and flourish existed and was part of Egypt for thousands of years.
    - gorlilla 2y ago
      They commented Sharm al-Sheikh, not Ras el-Hekma, was in Sinai. They commented that Ras el-Hekma is a more defensible location than Sharm al-Sheikh in general terms... which you seem to agree with based on your comment about needing to invade Northern Egypt to get to aras el-Hakem.
- jazzyjackson 2y ago
  isn't 8 billion dollars like 4 miles of NYC subway? [0] in the grand scheme of bailouts and liquidity injections it doesn't sound all that critical to me. [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-23/in-nyc-subway-a-case-study-in-runaway-transit-construction-costs https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-23/in-nyc-su...
  - akira2501 2y ago
    Isn't the GDP of NYC alone 3x that of the entire country of Egypt? Yes. The better question is what fraction of their GDP is this loan? Well, 1.6%. It's notable because while taking IMF loans has been a revolving door policy with Egypt this is the largest yet and the size was increased once already. It's being billed as an emergency loan because it is. Egypts debt load has tripled over the past year or two and they're stuck at a 10% deficit that's slowly crippling the country.
    - jazzyjackson 2y ago
      I had some sense there would be a difference in GDP there, I appreciate the figure. I forget that deficits are different when you owe the money to someone other than yourself.

by netdur 2y ago

akira2501 2y ago

> from the UAE, purchasing a city for $35 billion Ras al-Hekma for those curious. It sounds like a terrible deal on all sides. It's a bad vehicle for UAE money, it leaves Egypt with "35% guaranteed profits" on a planned city, and the UN is busily green washing the entire affair to curry political favor. > concerns about how these funds are managed Egypt seems completely squeezed. It's uniquely impacted by both the war on Ukraine and Gaza with the IMF having to step in and give them $3 billion later upgraded to $8 billion in emergency relief. The money is going to evaporate. My concern is there won't be any local economy or businesses left under these policies when it all dries up.

alephnerd 2y ago
> Ras al-Hekma for those curious. It sounds like a terrible deal on all sides It actually makes sense. Most tourism in Egypt comes from Eastern Europeans (especially Russians and Ukrainians), for whom Sharm al-Sheikh is their Cabo. If you've looked at a map, it's also located in Sinai, where there's an ongoing Muslim Brotherhood turned IS insurgency (which also enflamed neighboring Gaza). Moving resort tourism to much more defensible Ras al-Hekma works, and the UAE being the New York of the region had enough capital to co-invest to develop it (also didn't hurt to help line up politicians pockets). And Egypt (with UAE, Saudi, and some Indian capital) has been building out alternatives like Siwa. I actually chatted a eco-lodge owner from Siwa while I was stuck at a layover in Istanbul Airport - a lot of their tourism it now targeting the domestic market, Gulf market, some western hippy types, and Indians. > My concern is there won't be any local economy or businesses left under these policies when it all dries up The Egyptian economy is stabilizing and UAE, Saudi, Chinese, and Indian money is flowing in as FDI [0], and pushing reforms accordingly. Heck, Egypt's GDP Growth Rate in FY22 was 6.6% according to the World Bank, and has always been between 2.5-6% post-coup. [0] - https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/can-egypts-economic-overhaul-stave-crisis https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/can-egypts-economic-overhaul-st...
- resolutebat 2y ago
  Ras el-Hekma is to the west of Alexandria, nowhere close to the Sinai.
  - gorlilla 2y ago
    They said Sharm al-Sheikh was in Sinai.
- bluish29 2y ago
  > where there's an ongoing Muslim Brotherhood turned IS insurgency (which also enflamed neighboring Gaza). Is that Google AI search hallucinations? MB does not have anything to do with Sinai. There were insurgency fueled by several factors (some of them related to your normal normal Military Dictatorship) > If you've looked at a map, it's also located in Sinai I don't think you looked yourself in the map. It is located on the other side of Egypt. To the west of Alexandria. > Moving resort tourism to much more defensible Ras al-Hekma works More defensible? You really need to cross almost all of northern Egypt (practically invading it) to reach Ras- Elhekma from Sinai. > And Egypt (with UAE, Saudi, and some Indian capital) has been building out alternatives like Siwa I am not sure if by building out alternative you mean developing tourism destination because Siwa as a place where people live and flourish existed and was part of Egypt for thousands of years.
  - gorlilla 2y ago
    They commented Sharm al-Sheikh, not Ras el-Hekma, was in Sinai. They commented that Ras el-Hekma is a more defensible location than Sharm al-Sheikh in general terms... which you seem to agree with based on your comment about needing to invade Northern Egypt to get to aras el-Hakem.
jazzyjackson 2y ago
isn't 8 billion dollars like 4 miles of NYC subway? [0] in the grand scheme of bailouts and liquidity injections it doesn't sound all that critical to me. [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-23/in-nyc-subway-a-case-study-in-runaway-transit-construction-costs https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-23/in-nyc-su...
- akira2501 2y ago
  Isn't the GDP of NYC alone 3x that of the entire country of Egypt? Yes. The better question is what fraction of their GDP is this loan? Well, 1.6%. It's notable because while taking IMF loans has been a revolving door policy with Egypt this is the largest yet and the size was increased once already. It's being billed as an emergency loan because it is. Egypts debt load has tripled over the past year or two and they're stuck at a 10% deficit that's slowly crippling the country.
  - jazzyjackson 2y ago
    I had some sense there would be a difference in GDP there, I appreciate the figure. I forget that deficits are different when you owe the money to someone other than yourself.