Cairo, Africa's best city for doing business? Those who already know the Egyptian capital may be surprised by this result. The city is notorious for its pollution, traffic jams and infrastructure problems.
Despite this, the Egyptian metropolis offers a very westernised and pleasant life to those who know what it's all about - particularly in the suburbs and districts such as Maadi, Garden City, Heliopolis and the north of Zamalek. The construction of New Cairo, with its gleaming buildings and shopping centres, is transforming...
Cairo, Africa's best city for doing business? Those who already know the Egyptian capital may be surprised by this result. The city is notorious for its pollution, traffic jams and infrastructure problems.
Despite this, the Egyptian metropolis offers a very westernised and pleasant life to those who know what it's all about - particularly in the suburbs and districts such as Maadi, Garden City, Heliopolis and the north of Zamalek. The construction of New Cairo, with its gleaming buildings and shopping centres, is transforming the ancient Egyptian city. The Cairo of tomorrow will look more like Dubai or Doha than a traditional African city...
Yet this is the result of a study by Statista, a leading private provider of data and statistics based in Hamburg. This German-based supplier of data and statistics has listed 200 towns around the world. And found that Cairo was the best city in Africa. To do this, it has applied a series of economic and empirical criteria that justify companies' decisions to locate there. In addition to population size and GDP, a number of other factors play an important role in determining the suitability of a city as a business location.
The index is based on a number of sub-indices: The 'Economy' dimension examines the economic strength and level of development of the city in question. The Business Environment dimension focuses on infrastructure and logistics. The "Society" dimension analyses population development, education and living standards. The "Charisma" dimension highlights aspects such as tourism, culture and the environment.
North and South Africa excel
Cairo scored particularly highly for its operating environment. While the city's overall ranking out of the 200 analysed was only 176, Cairo, on the other hand, comes 113th in this category.. Among the top-ranked cities for conducting business are Algiers, Johannesburg and Casablanca. They also performed well compared to other African cities. Johannesburg, ranked 176th overall, was the strongest in the Society sub-index.
While the index analyses in detail all the components linked to the standard of living and well-being, it can be criticised for not including cities as important in Africa as Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, Abidjan, Dakar or Kigali in Rwanda.
