Second OBG Business Barometer Egypt CEO survey published

Egypt, Cairo - The second edition of the Business Barometer: Egypt CEO Survey by the global publishing, research and consultancy firm Oxford Business Group (OBG), undertaken in partnership with Tatweer Misr, was launched on July 3 at Conrad Cairo Hotel.
 
Taking place under the banner “Key Findings on OBG Business Barometer: Egypt CEO Survey”, the event provided a platform for the Group’s team to share its findings with an audience of dignitaries, VIPs, representatives from the public and private sectors, and members of the media.
 
Ahmed Shalaby, Tatweer Misr’s CEO and managing director, gave a keynote speech on several topical issues, ranging from investor sentiment to the business community’s expectations, after which Souhir Mzali, OBG’s regional editor for Africa, presented the Group’s findings.
 
As part of its survey, OBG asked 136 C-suite executives from across Egypt’s industries a wide-ranging series of questions on a face-to-face basis aimed at gauging business sentiment. The results are now available to view in full on OBG’s Editors’ Blog at: https://oxfordbusinessgroup.com/blog/souhir-mzali/
 
OBG found the vast majority of respondents to be optimistic about the outlook for the coming months. From those interviewed, 91% described their expectations for local business conditions in the next 12 months as either positive or very positive, up from 79% in OBG’s first survey on Egypt, which was published in early 2017.
 
Almost three-quarters (73%) of respondents were also upbeat about the impact they felt the decision to float the Egyptian pound in November 2016 would have on the business landscape in the near term.
 
A similar share (70%) of business leaders were equally bullish in their forecasts for GDP growth, telling OBG that they expected the local economy to expand by between 3% and 5% in 2018, slightly below the 5.2% projection made by the IMF.
 
There were also signs that reforms aimed at enhancing Egypt’s business climate are taking effect, with 70% of respondents describing the current tax environment as either competitive or very competitive on a global scale.
 
While confidence is high among business leaders, regional unrest clearly remains a major concern. Almost two-thirds (65%) viewed increased instability in neighbouring countries as the top external risk to growth in the short to medium term, well ahead of rising oil prices (17.2%).
 
OBG also asked business leaders about the skills they felt were in highest demand in the workplace – a key issue, given the high level of youth unemployment, which the IMF put at 33.1% in 2017. Just over half (54%) of respondents cited leadership as the skillset they felt was most in need among employees, followed by research and development (12.7%), and business administration (9%).
 
Commenting on the results in her blog, Souhir Mzali, OBG’s regional editor for Africa, said the results of the latest survey suggested that the broader drive to improve public finances, reduce the size of the state and enhance the business environment was now delivering results.
 
“Egypt had been through myriad changes since 2014 as the government has sought to introduce a wide range of legislative and regulatory reforms to restore economic order,” she said. “Overall, efforts to put the economy back on a surer footing seem to be finally paying off, and confidence among the business community appears to be returning in full force.”
 
Mzali noted, however, that while Egypt’s reforms had positioned it for ongoing economic expansion, a number of pressing challenges still needed addressing, most notably the country’s high unemployment levels, which would require longer-term attention in the form of “sustained job creation”.
 
Mzali’s in-depth evaluation of the survey’s results can be found on OBG’s Editor’s Blog,
titled ‘Next Frontier’. All four of OBG’s regional managing editors use the platform to share their expert analysis of the latest developments taking place across the sectors of the 30+ high-growth markets covered by the company’s research. 
 
Ahmed Shalaby said the survey’s results showed that CEOs had recognized the part that ambitious reforms were playing in helping Egypt to reignite investor interest and begin addressing the difficulties it faced.
 
“There is no doubt that the past few years have presented the Egyptian economy with a multitude of dynamic challenges”. “However, with the presence of our reform program that is currently and efficiently being applied, the country’s economic growth has been recovering steadily and has started to boom once again, especially in the real estate sector, which has witnessed a steep growth due to an expected increase in the foreign and local demand”, Shalaby said.
 
The OBG Business Barometer: CEO Surveys feature in the Group’s extensive portfolio of research tools. The full results of the survey on Egypt will be made available online and in print. Similar studies are also under way in the other markets in which OBG operates.

© Press Release 2018