埃及革命过后的经济情况

Janet Wahib has worked in quality control at this Cairo garment factory for six months. She wasn’t out on the streets during the revolution. She felt she should keep on working, so the country didn’t come to a standstill.

“This revolution started,” she says, “so people could improve their standard of living, get better jobs. It’s started so that we could be better not worse off than before.”

For the tourism sector which accounts for one in eight jobs in Egypt, things have definitely got worse.

Normally in June, these boats which are called “feluccas” are packed with tourists, but now the people who run them are taking the time to do some basic repairs as the tourists are staying away, worried that the security in this country is still not under control.

Investors, too, are wary as protests continue and the country’s political future after September elections remains far from clear. Hisham Ezz El Arab who runs one of Egypt’s biggest banks, CIB, says the outlook’s positive despite this period of pain.

“The Minister of Finance, I sympathize with him, * because he’s confronted with many challenges and many issues that would have been buried all the time. Talk about the minimum wages. OK? And employee rights and productivity. All those issues, they have been there on the table for the last ten years. But they are like the taboos, you cannot touch. It’s quite good that they open that Pandora box. You need to cleanse things, put things on track because the current government is not there only just to nurse the country, no, they are preparing the ground for the coming government to take off.”

Al Arafa where Janet Wahib works is Egypt’s number one clothing exporter, employing around 8,000 staff. They are now paid close to the new minimum wage which isn’t much, $120 a month rising to 200 over five years. But CEO Hala Hashem says even this wage runs the risk of stifling growth, especially when the strong Egyptian pound makes exporters like Al Arafa less competitive.

“The other thing is actually the minimum wages. It’s an excellent concept and I totally believe in it. It’s only fair for this country and population in it. The problem is that it’s quite challenging at this time for this industry.”

Perhaps the greatest challenge is managing expectations. Egyptians overturned 30 years of repression in just 18 days. It will take far longer for the average Egyptian to feel the economic benefits they fought so hard for.

Diana Magnay, cnn, Cairo