Omnia Khalil

After the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative started in 2013, and in 2017, the Egyptian government started a bilateral collaboration with China. The China-Egypt collaboration entails a number of infrastructural projects in Egypt, including light trains, and construction of towers in new mega-projects. The moment in Egypt met its economic changes due to the political decisions of the new regime. This paper examines the nature of the bilateral collaboration and how it contributes to the Egyptian economy. Do the urban development projects contribute to state-capitalism in Egypt or not? I argue that what appears to be a state-capitalism plan is a neoliberal economy which depends on FDI and involves international financial markets. Since 2013, the specificity of Egypt’s political economy is to reinsert Egypt’s economy into global capitalism with partnerships with China and others who play a key role in the economic processes.