Budget and Economy. (i) An estimate of the Recoverable Costs for each Year, according to the alternative and phase analysed. Said estimate should be made for each scenario of proven, probable and possible reserves. These estimates must be presented in constant US Dollars and without adjustment for expected inflation;
Budget and Economy. In many countries, the army becomes an economic ‘player’. This is the case in Egypt, where in 2008 the American Embassy defined the army as a “quasi-commercial’ enterprise”.2 One researcher elaborated that the Egyptian army enjoys economic benefits such as “subsidized fuel inputs, control over lucrative real estate […] preferential access to state contracts, and the use of special permits to exercise extralegal oversight in sectors ranging from petrochemicals to tourism.3” (It should be mentioned that during Mubarak’s final years the army’s economic situation was neglected, and it appears to have improved under el-Sisi). An example of this is the huge commercial center established by the Egyptian army in 2013 in the Suez region, where it sold products, both imported and Egyptian, at reduced prices.4 The Egyptian army’s economic power has been restored under el-Sisi. It is hard to tell exactly what part the army plays in the Egyptian economy. The army itself claimed in 2014 that revenues from various military industries accounted for less than one percent of Egypt’s GDP. Various experts have assessed the real portion as between five and sixty percent – a gap which means that it is difficult to formulate precise data on the involvement of the army in the Egyptian economy, apart from the fact that it exists and is recognized.5 The army’s budget itself is also unclear. For instance, Egypt’s defense budget was estimated at $5.5 billion in 2015, however, Egypt’s purchases from France alone in that year amounted to nearly €6.2 billion Euros.6 While such procurement is not paid in one year, such huge amounts to only one of Egypt’s suppliers indicate that the reported defense budget apparently does not include all acquisitions. In order to better understand the financial meaning of such deals, let’s demonstrate this by a comparison to an Israeli deal. The Israeli F-35 purchase of 50 aircraft over a period of several years was estimated at $7.5 billion7 which is approximately half of Israel’s estimated defense budget for one year, if we disregard the share of the US aid budget in the deal. The submarine contract (which at the time of writing this article is the focus of a police investigation) is approximately $1.5 billion. In other words, the payment for both major deals which Israel has signed, whose payments have been distributed over several years, together make up about two thirds of her annual defense budget. In contrast, only part of Egypt’s acquisitions in 2...
