Revival Of Egypt Economy Needs Huge Work

Director of Pan-African News Wire Abayomi Azikiwe believes that Hesham Qandil was chosen for his westernised technocratic background.

Press TV has conducted an interview with Abayomi Azikiwe, the director of Pan-African News Wire, from Detroit, to discuss the selection of Hisham Qandil as Prime Minister and how he could help the economy.

Press TV: One of the things expected of a prime minister is that he should be able to help the economy. Does Mr. Qandil have the experience and wisdom and the competence for economics taking into consideration his activities in the Irrigation Ministry?

Azikiwe: This is probably the reason why he was chosen. He is a US-educated technocrat. I think it’s necessary for them to be able to relate to Western economic forces that have played a very dominant role inside of Egypt over the last 30-plus years.

The economy is going to require a tremendous amount of work. First of all, the question of natural gas resources and trade with the state of Israel is going to be a very important aspect of the economic restructuring of Egypt because this has been disrupted as a result of the mass demonstrations that have taken place since last January 2011, and also sabotage of the pipelines between Egypt and Israel.

Also the tourist industry is going to take an enormous amount of work to revive tourism inside the country because this has, of course, suffered as a result of the instability that has occurred over the last 16 months inside the country as well.

Then of course, Egypt’s role with the United States is going to be of importance in regard to the extension of investments, the role of the military because that is very important in regard to US-Egyptian relation, and also the question of debt.

There’s been an enormous amount of debt that has built up in Egypt over the last several months because of the stalled economy, the problems associated with tourism, the problems associated with the natural gas industry. So there needs to be some renegotiation between Egypt’s creditors and the government itself in order to put it back on a sound footing.

Egypt Business