EVERY week thousands of Egyptians cram past a narrow, tightly guarded doorway at Uber’s offices a few blocks from Tahrir Square and wait in a small room. Nearly 2,000 of them are signing up as new drivers every week 40% of them previously unemployed. Nearby, Uber’s growing customer-service centre employs 250 locals. The company is earmarking more than $50m to expand operations in Cairo alone.
For Egypt, whose economy relies on aid to stay afloat, such influxes of foreign investment ought to be welcomed. But it does not always seem so. It took six months for Uber’s licensing paperwork to come through, even with a lot of string-pulling. After a year of haggling with nine government ministries, a proper ride-sharing law is unlikely to emerge from parliament any time soon. But Egypt, which ranks a dismal 122nd place on the World Bank’s ease-of-doing-business index, hopes to reform its ways. On May 7th it finally passed an investment law, more than two years overdue, designed to lure foreign...Continue reading
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