At the celebration organized by Lieutenant General Ahmed Shafik to inaugurate the third passenger terminal at Cairo Airport two days ago, I was asked by Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif what I had meant in this column on the same day. I had compared between the rate of growth in China, India and Egypt and I had demanded that reaching a high level of growth this year come not at the expense of other elements that, together, make up the strength of our national economy in general. When the prime minister stood up to ask me this question, this was for me a new opportunity to reassert what I had said, as writers usually do not mean anything except what they write on the paper. When great writer Ihsan Abdel Kudos was once asked about something he had written and whether he meant something behind his words, he said that he did not mean anything at all except what was already written before the investigator and that any attempt to deduce any meanings he had not written was useless. As for me, when I made that comparison between the rate growths in these three countries, I reached the conclusion that China, for example, had achieved an astonishing growth rate over 30 years and that India drew close to that rate. Both countries are still being admired by the world for their ability to achieve that level - almost 12% in some cases, which was unprecedented in any country, including superpowers. I told the prime minister that Egypt this year achieved a 7% growth rate, which is envied by many countries inside and outside the region. But then several international crises have broken out, from the food crisis this summer to the international financial one currently underway. Our country's growth rate has been affected by these crises and it is now likely to drop to 4.5% this year if not even ½ per cent lower. If we only focus on our growth rate, we are in fact like a person who reads a Koranic verse, but not entirely, or like a person saying a sentence without completing it. The growth rate by itself is not an indicator of the government's success and it does not mean that we can rest on our laurels believing that we have achieved our mission when it comes to our national economy. This does not mean, either, that we can, only based on what we have achieved so far, successfully face the consequences of the international financial crisis, otherwise India and China would have nothing to fear. Instead, both countries are very much suffering from this crisis on several levels, mainly falling employment rates, dropping exports, rising imports as well as other problems. All this means that the rate we have achieved needs, to bring any fruit on the long run, to be sustained and to have a cumulative effect or, at least, to be maintained at its current level. Let me say once again, or probably for the 10th time, that the growth rate achieved by Dr. Nazif's government is an important achievement, as affirmed by those who disagree with it, as well. This alone, though, will never be enough is never enough and will not fulfill what we want as citizens and what the country wants. Consequently, the challenge that this government is still facing is a double one: first, dealing with the growth rate, as it was the case before the outbreak of the international crisis; and second, looking at this rate day after day based on the consequences of this crisis.
