• @alaingresh
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    @rumor
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    The Armed Forces and Egypt’s land | Mada Masr
    ▻http://www.madamasr.com/sections/economy/armed-forces-and-egypts-land

    In February, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi issued a decree to direct the Armed Forces Land Projects Agency (AFLPA) to oversee construction of two of Egypt’s mega-projects to be built on 16,000 acres under military control: the new capital city and Sheikh Zeyad’s new urban community. The decree granted AFLPA the power to form joint ventures.

    The move is indicative of the political direction increasingly taken by Egypt’s authorities to expand the Armed Forces’ involvement in the economy. This military involvement does not only take the form of oversight and contractual management, but increasingly is articulated through the formation of joint venture investments wherein the military allocates desert land under its control – land whose value is expected to appreciate markedly – to companies affiliated with the Armed Forces, as a capital investment.

    Does allowing the AFLPA to form joint ventures signal a major transformation in the military’s role in Egypt’s economy?

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      First, it establishes a legal framework to allow the Armed Forces to use desert land as an investment. Egyptian jurisprudence’s historical attention to national defense has led to the consolidation of desert lands under the control of the Armed Forces. Most desert land fell under the control of the Armed Forces in the 1950s and 1960s. At the time, desert land had little economic value, as Egypt’s population was concentrated in the Nile Valley and the Delta – a situation that has completely changed over the last three decades. Economic and population growth have become increasingly dependent on expansion into Egypt’s once uninhabitable deserts. Expansion has taken the form of land reclamation and housing projects, new industrial cities and tourist attractions. The development of each of these initiatives is contingent upon access to affordable desert land, which the government has been able to provide using the compensatory framework of the original desert land law: the Armed Forces is paid for the utility costs incurred during its relocation. However, in reality, the state and the military, often indivisible, have used desert land to acquire economic gains, either through the outright sale of land or through the recent practice of using land as a capital investment in urban development companies.

      Second, the recent presidential decree changes the way in which the Armed Forces use desert land. Access to desert land has allowed the NSPO to transform Egypt’s transportation infrastructure through the construction of roads, overpasses and tunnels. However, now – as evinced by the government’s projects in the administrative capital and the Suez Canal channel, as well as in affordable housing – the Armed Forces have pivoted and will commence a foray into urban and industrial projects as well as logistical services. The move may augur AFLPA’s more frequent use of its land possessions as capital investments in joint ventures with Arab and international investors.

      Il y a qqs mois sur le même sujet : Barayez A.-F., 2016, « This Land is their Land »: Egypt’s Military and the Economy, in Jadaliyya, < ▻http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/23671/« this-land-is-their-land »_egypt’s-military-and-the >

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    “This Land is their Land” : Egypt’s Military and the Economy
    ▻http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/23671/%E2%80%9Cthis-land-is-their-land%E2%80%9D_egypt%E2%80%99s-military-and-th

    Cet article extrêmement documenté est remarquable sur la réalité et la nature du pouvoir économique et politique des militaires en Egypte
    @alaingresh

    contrary to popular thinking, the army’s share in Egypt’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is relatively small. Though limited, hard data shows that it is present in many sectors but does not occupy a commanding position in any, and indeed has no presence in a range of crucial economic sectors. There is little empirical evidence that the private sector has been crowded out by the military at all, with the possible exception of government contracts for new mega-projects in the post-June 2013 period.

    The Egyptian military’s economic model is based on rent extraction. Through its broad legal and effective control of public assets, namely public lands that constitute around 94 per cent of Egypt’s total surface area, the military translates its regulatory mandate into an economic return. The military also wields considerable, if less formal influence through the large number of former officers who hold high level posts in the civil service, particularly in public land management. Public land is crucial for economic growth and for the development of essential sectors, including urban development, manufacturing, tourism, and agriculture—which, together, constitute the bulk of Egypt’s economy. More than any other factor, the chokehold on land use is costly for the economy. The complexity and opacity of the regulatory environment affecting access to it moreover adds to the inefficiency of the private sector. This results in significant opportunity costs for potential growth and urban expansion—in an overcrowded country that needs to expand settlement into the vast tracts of desert land to the east and west of the densely populated Nile Valley.

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