By Reuters
CAIRO: Egypt’s economy grew by an annualized 0.4 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011, indicating the economy is on the mend after the turmoil of last year’s popular uprising, the deputy chairman of parliament’s economic committee said, citing official figures.
“The slowdown in the growth rate has been contained, and that is a good indicator for growth,” said Member of Parliament Abbas Abdel Aziz on Monday.
“The growth rate was 0.2 percent in the first quarter of last year. But in the second quarter it rose to 0.4 percent. This is an improvement.”
However, an analyst said the feeble growth meant that Egypt’s economy had contracted for the whole of 2011.
This “confirms our fears that the economy contracted last year for the first time since at least the 1960s,” Said Hirsh from Capital Economics wrote.
He added that recent industrial data showed that a recovery that had started in the third quarter was losing steam and forecast that Egypt’s gross domestic product (GDP) would grow by only 3 percent in 2012, down from the country’s average 5 percent over the past decade.
