Egypt Releases 2009 Economic Indicators

: The report on economic and social indicators of Egypt prepared by the Center for Information and Decision Support Center of the Egyptian Cabinet showed a decline in the number of citizens who have used trains as a means of transportation, down from 333 million passengers during the period last year to around 245 million passengers during the same period last year of 2009. However, revenues were up over the same period, January to November, recording LE 763.9 million during 2008 compared to LE 782 million during 2009. With regard to aviation and maritime transportation, the report pointed out that the movement of passengers with Egyptian passports dropped by  4%, falling from 3.382 million passengers in October 2008 to about 3.247 million passengers in the same month of 2009.

With regard to the energy index, the report showed a decrease in production of crude oil by about 1.2% through the end of October 2009 and the value of Egyptian exports of crude oil and petroleum products falling by 40%. The total export value was $429 million through October 2008 and this year only represented $257 million dollars. The report also showed rising domestic consumption of petroleum products from 2.5 million tons at the end of October 2008 to about 2.7 million tons in 2009, an increase of 6.6%.

The report pointed out that despite the 1% rise in Egypt’s production of natural gas, from 3.9 million tons to 4 million tons, the value of Egypt’s exports of natural gas and petroleum products declined by 36% from $310 million at the end of October 2008 to about $198 million dollars in 2009. The report pointed out that construction sector indicators have shown the production of iron and steel fall from 406 thousand tons at the end of November 2008 to 353 thousand tons at the end of November 2009, a decrease of 13.2%, while cement indicators increased production from 3 million tons in October 2008 to around 3.6 million tons at the end of October 2009.

The report showed that the number of businesses established from January until the end of November showed a 7.8% decrease from 6551 companies in 2008 to 6037 in 2009. Bankruptcy cases rose by 21.8% during the period in 2009.