President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has pushed through business-friendly reforms that would have been unthinkable in Egypt a few years ago, including cutting fuel subsidies. The results have been impressive, bringing praise from the IMF. So is the optimism prevailing in the country justified? James King reports.

Egypt’s banks are throwing their weight behind extending financial inclusion to small and micro businesses, as well as the country's wider population as part of the national Vision 2030 strategy, helped by changes to the bankruptcy system and hopes of lower interest rates. James King reports.

Hala El Said, Egypt’s minister of planning and administrative reform, talks to James King about government strategies to cut unemployment through greater private sector involvement and the decentralisation of investment to the governorates. 

Political unrest, high public debt and a drop in tourism have hit Egypt’s fortunes in recent years. But as a successful $4bn debt-raising deal has shown, investor appetite is recovering. Edward Russell-Walling spoke to the team from joint lead manager Citi.

Commercial International Bank’s digital innovations fit into the Egyptian government’s strategy of financial inclusiveness. James King looks at how the bank is making them work.

Banks across the Arab world continue to perform well despite the turbulent political environment, according to The Banker’s Top 100 Arab banks ranking. 

The speed with which Egypt completed its Suez Canal expansion has given observers confidence that the country’s ambitious SCZone plan really could become the economic powerhouse the government envisions.

Egypt's recovery from a period of economic, social and political upheaval is now well under way and, says minister of finance Hany Kadry Dimian, a new fiscal policy is playing a key role within this comeback, while also ensuring that all sections of society feel its benefits.

The global financial crisis and Arab Spring uprisings all but decimated Egypt's economy. However, its banks survived this period with admirable resilience, and now that the economy is back on an upward spiral, they are looking to cash in.

The countries of north Africa have been proving attractive for lenders from the Gulf region for decades, but in recent years this activity has picked up, with Egypt a particularly popular destination. Tom Stevenson looks at the reasons why Gulf banks are heading west.