Some Political Economy

Since I'm so stuck in my studies now, I thought I may share some of the facts I've been studying lately for my "Political Economy of the Middle East" course with Professor Emad Shahin. Also "Political Economy of Poverty"with Dr Nadia Farah

1. The value of Egypt's annual Exports is estimated to be 8b$ by officials. ( Real figure is 5b$ ) that is 1/5 of Bill Gates' wealth. Malaysia exports 187b$.
2. 47% of Egypt's population is under the poverty line(<2$)
3. Egyptians spend 2.5b pounds on mobile lines annualy, also another 2.5b pounds on the devices.
4. Egyptians spend 15b pounds on drugs annually.
5. Egyptians spend 13b pounds on private tutoring annually.
6. Egyptians spend 3b pounds on supplimantary books annually.
7. Arabs expenditure on Scientific research represents 0.5% of Arab's GDP (Cuba spends 1.26%) ( this is less that 1/7th of the world average).
8. only 0.6% of Arab population use the internet / and 1.2% use personal computers.

I can add more, but these are the most significant facts that surprised me, btw these facts have been published over the last few years, in Arab human development reports and in newspapers. These statistics are not exaggerated. I will not comment on any of the statistics because im doing enough of that for uni, just wanted to share these quick facts with you