Emerging market turmoil enveloping Turkey and Argentina is also claiming some less high-profile victims, such as Egypt, according to a report by BBC.online on Thursday.
The report said that Egypt's stock market, once the apple of the intrepid Middle East investor's eye, has slumped to levels not seen for more than seven years.
While foreign investment has retreated to less risky markets in the face of global economic slowdown, local investors are hoping that the depressed air in Cairo will lift when they return to work after summer holidays.
But a combination of local, regional and international factors is making the case for a rebound increasingly hard to make.
After several years of slow progress with a privatization program that promised the sell-off of 314 state-owned companies, the Egyptian government finally gave investors what they wanted - a majority stake in a company heading for the stock market.
Investor interest took off, continued the report, and other initial public offerings followed and the market ended the year 43 percent higher than it had begun it.
The number of Cairo brokerages climbed into the hundreds and international banks such as HSBC, ABN Amro and Flemings stepped up their presence in one of the region's few markets with a realistic claim on foreign investor attention.
Shortly after, in February 1997, the benchmark Hermes index cleared 16,500 to reach what remains an all-time high.
But since then, said the BBC, performance has mostly disappointed, with only a few spurts of excitement along the way.
It added that the flow of initial public offerings dried up and investors grew disillusioned with a government that promised much but delivered little.
However, bright spots came largely from the greater numbers of private companies making their way to the market, such as Mobile phone operator MobiNil in early 1999, but such ventures resulted in a stagnation in the market – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
