A MARKET swoon may not have made it easy for American businesses to attract investment, but problems are relative. The American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt, one might assume, would be having a harder time unearthing opportunities. The chamber's 950 members include American and multinational companies doing business in Egypt, and Egyptian companies doing business in America. A common assumption is that both are sunk. Yet over a friendly cup of morning coffee, in a diner on Manhattan's upper east side, Hisham Fahmy, chief executive of the organisation, talks of promising prospects.
Mr Fahmy acknowledges that there are problems. These begin with politics: revolution in 2011, the coup in 2013, and what he refers to as the "security situation", which is presumably a nice way of describing violent protests that have included murder, rape and arson. The country's past two presidents are incarcerated in the process of contentious trials. Energy shortages undermine the continuous operations of essential industries, such as cement-making. A lack of foreign exchange impairs companies that use any imported components, which is to say lots of them. Tourism has been hit hard. The broader threat to security has hurt transport as well. In other words, virtually every business is affected.
Uncertainty by itself takes an immediate toll on business investment. This is deepened by an underlying confusion about how to go forward. When Hani Dimian, Egypt's new finance minister, for example, attempted to reassure the chamber that a new tax system would be entirely conventional and possibly modelled on America's, he ran into reasonable objections noting how ludicrous and economically damaging the US tax system has become.
All of this would seemingly make Mr Fahmy's efforts fruitless. Yet he is an adept diplomat. After acknowledging concerns, he suggests another picture is obscured. Yes, tourism has been crunched, but that means Egypt is now "a good bargain" that has attracted travellers from Germany, Italy, Russia and Jordan. Furthermore, special development zones that enable duty-free exports to America if 10% of the content is Israeli, produce $1 billion in sales, both for obvious products like textiles and less obvious ones such as canned artichokes.
Ibrahim Mehlib, the new prime minister who was appointed in February, was previously head of the state construction agency. Construction is now pervasive. Reflecting commercial demand, General Motors has started production of a new lorry in the country. Chrysler, too, is manufacturing a new hardy vehicle. And, most importantly, Mr Fahmy says, foreign companies that have stuck around through the turmoil continue to make lots of money.
The chamber's website is filled with testimonials from the heads of well-known businesses. They may gently acknowledge the current situation with euphemisms such as "we hope things stabilise a bit", and, "we recognise there are short-term issues with the economy". But they also note that Egypt remains a large market and a regional hub. For Coca Cola, it is the only location outside of its American headquarters in Atlanta in possession of the drink's secret formula. It is also the source of Coke's sales for a region stretching from Afghanistan to Ghana. In a statement that must surely stand as a testimony to, well, something, the local head of Mars, a confectioner, says his company has had "three fantastic years, even though we have had the revolution".
While these are all tempting to dismiss, the Egyptian stockmarket is up by 50% over the past year, making it one of the best performing in the world. "Up from what?" might be a reasonable response, which probably explains why this has received no attention. Still, at a moment when optimism is fraying in America and in once fast-growing markets such as the BRICs, perhaps there is a danger that all the pessimism surrounding Egypt-even if supported by mounds of evidence-is obscuring a flicker of promise.