Egyptians: Economy will improve in 12 months

Yet, according to the Nielsen Global Survey of Consumer Confidence and Spending intentions, Egyptians continue to be optimistic and are the 10th nation on the global scale to believe their country will out of the recession within a year (28%).

“Egyptian’s faith for a better tomorrow is big. Despite challenges, the country is moving ahead with high level of optimism and dedication,” commented Tamer El-Araby, Managing Director for Egypt and Levant- Nielsen.

Nielsen information shows that Egyptian consumers’ discretionary spending intentions declined across all categories measured in Q4 2013 compared to Q3 of the same year.

Egyptians online consumers are the most concerned globally about political stability (34%) up 3 percentage points than last quarter. Second major concern among Egyptians is Job security (30%), followed by the economy (26%). Twenty-one percent of Egyptians are worried about terrorism; placing Egypt as the most worried about terrorism globally despite its decline of 26 percent compared to Q3. Other concerns are parents’ welfare and happiness (15%), increasing food prices (14%), work/life balance (10%) and crime (8%).

Confidence indicators posted an upward shift in respondents who find it a bad time to buy the things they want, scoring seven percentage points increase (27%) than Q3, up three percentage points for negative perception of personal finances (13%) and one percentage point up for bad perception of for job prospects (26%).

“The Egyptian Consumer Confidence Index keeps fluctuating from one quarter to another due to the emotional and spontaneous responses to the on-going events and challenges. The long duration of instability and the rise of terrorism have definitely negatively impacted the general sentiments of Egyptians,” said El-Araby.