The 2009 Industrial Development Report by the United Nations Industrial Development organization (UNIDO) says Egypt's competitive industrial performance at the global level has fallen to the 75th position (according to statistics carried out in 2005). Egypt was ranked 50th in 2000. This comes according to the competitive performance assessment, which measures progress in terms of industrial capacity, exporting capacity, industrial density and the quality of the product exported. According to the report, Qatar has significantly improved its competitive industrial performance, as it is now ranked 47th after being 70th. It is then followed by Tunisia, Jordan, Morocco, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and finally Egypt, while Israel achieved the best competitive performance in the Middle East and is ranked 31st. At a conference held yesterday to launch the regional report, Dr. Paul Makin, UNIDO regional representative, said Egypt was facing several problems concerning industrial development in the fields of industry and the exportation of agricultural crops, especially in the south of the country. He added that between 40% and 60% of the agricultural crops went lost before being manufactured due to the lack of means to ship, package, wrap and transport them. This has caused a gap in Egypt's agro-industrial performance, he said. Dr. Makin described the banking system procedures followed by the Egyptian government as tight, saying they hamper investments and do not allow creating new job opportunities for the youth and increasing the category of youths compared to retirees and elderly people. He affirmed it was necessary to take care of small and medium enterprises and to lend to youths so that they might carry out housing and industrialization projects. Makin said coordination between the UNIDO and the Egyptian Ministry of Trade was under way over Trade and Industry Minister's Rachid Mohamed Rachid's vision to rebuild the infrastructure in Egypt (roads, means of transport and sanitation), especially as economic reforms required a general development of the infrastructure.
