The good news for Egypt is that its economy has performed better than expected during the global crisis.

Growth in 2008-09 – the Egyptian financial year runs to the end of June – was 4.7 per cent, which is not as good as the 7 per cent average of the previous three years but is still better than projections this time last year. The trend, according to analysts and policy- makers, is up. They expect growth for 2009-10 to be above 5 per cent.