s of red (top), white, and black with the
national emblem (a shield superimposed on a golden eagle facing the hoist side
above a scroll bearing the name of the country in Arabic) centered in the white
band; similar to the flags of the YAR which has one star, Syria which has two
stars, and Iraq which has three stars--all green and five-pointed in a
horizontal line centered in the white band

- Economy
Overview: Egypt has one of the largest public sectors of all
the Third World economies, most industrial plants being owned by the
government. Overregulation holds back technical modernization and
foreign investment. Even so, the economy grew rapidly during the late
1970s and early 1980s, but in 1986 the collapse of world oil prices
and an increasingly heavy burden of debt servicing led Egypt to begin
negotiations with the IMF for balance-of-payments support. As part of
the 1987 agreement with the IMF, the government agreed to institute
a reform program to reduce inflation, promote economic growth, and
improve its external position. The reforms have been slow in coming,
however, and the economy has been largely stagnant for the past
three years. With 1 million people being added every eight months
to Egypt's population, urban growth exerts enormous pressure on
the 5% of the total land area available for agriculture.

GDP: $38.3 billion, per capita $700; real growth rate 1.0% (1989 est.)

Inflation rate (consumer prices): 25% (1989 est.)

Unemployment rate: 15% (1989 est.)

Budget: revenues $7 billion; expenditures $11.5 billion,
including capital expenditures of $4 billion (FY89 est.)

Exports: $2.55 billion (f.o.b., 1989); commodities--raw cotton,
crude and refined petroleum, cotton yarn, textiles; partners--US,
EC, Japan, Eastern Europe

Imports: $10.1 billion (c.i.f., 1988); commodities--foods,
machinery and equipment, fertilizers, wood products, durable consumer goods,
capital goods; partners--US, EC, Japan, Eastern Europe

External debt: $45 billion (December 1989)

Industrial production: growth rate 2-4% (1989 est.)

Electricity: 11,273,000 kW capacity; 42,500 million kWh produced,
780 kWh per capita (1989)

Industries: textiles, food processing, tourism, chemicals,
petroleum, construction, cement, metals

Agriculture: accounts for 20% of GNP and employs more than one-third of
labor force; dependent on irrigation water from the Nile; world's
fifth-largest cotton exporter; other crops produced include ric