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Small protests have been held in the capital in the past week to support Tunisia
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Anti-government activists in Egypt are preparing for a rare day of protest, inspired by the recent political upheaval in Tunisia.
Organisers have called for a “day of revolt against torture, poverty, corruption and unemployment”.
But the government has warned they face arrest and is calling its supporters out in a counter-demonstration.
Weeks of unrest in Tunisia eventually toppled President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia earlier this month.
The events in Cairo are being co-ordinated on a Facebook page – tens of thousands of supporters have clicked on the page to say they will take part.
“Our protest on the 25th is the beginning of the end,” Reuters quoted the organisers as saying.
“It is the end of silence, acquiescence and submission to what is happening in our country. It will be the start of a new page in Egypt’s history – one of activism and demanding our rights.”
The BBC’s Jon Leyne in Cairo says event is a direct response to the campaign that ousted President Ben Ali of Tunisia, in which the internet also played an important part.
But there is bound to be scepticism about exactly how many will actually turn up, say our correspondent.
They know they could face a tough response from the police, who often break up protests with violence.
In a statement, the government’s security director in the capital said: “The security apparatus will deal firmly and decisively with any attempt to break the law.”
Egypt’s political opposition is also divided – one leader, Mohamed El-Baradei, has called on Egyptians to take part, but the Muslim Brotherhood, still the most powerful opposition movement, has been more ambivalent.
Egypt has many of same social and political problems that brought about the unrest in Tunisia – rising food prices, high unemployment and anger at official corruption.
But protests so far have only been small-scale and correspondents say a similar political upheaval is unlikely.
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By Tim Weber
The World Economic Forum exhorts participants not to stand still
Business confidence around the world has returned to pre-crisis levels, a survey by accounting firm PwC suggests.
Just under half of all bosses polled are very confident their business will grow in 2011, up from 30% a year ago.
The survey, released at the start of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, shows that most executives expect demand in Asia to drive growth.
“CEOs have emerged from the bunker mentality of surviving the recession,” said PwC chairman Dennis Nally.
Confidence levels – with 48% being very confident and only 12% showing no confidence at all – are only four percentage points below the the peak in January 2007, a few months before the global credit crunch started.
While confidence levels are up in all regions of the world, the most bullish chief executives can be found in India, China, Thailand, Colombia and Paraguay.
Western European bosses are the least confident, with the exception of Austria and especially Germany, where a stunning 80% of top managers are “very confident” about their companies’ performance.
Dennis Nally says company bosses are looking beyond the recession
The survey confirms the prediction of one high-powered hedge fund manager at last year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, who said that 2010 was the year for investments, while “2011 will be the year to make money”.
Some of the economists coming to Davos go even further. Gerard Lyons, chief economist of Standard Chartered – a bank with most of its operations in emerging economies – predicts that the world is about to enter a super-cycle of high economic growth that could last decades.
Not everybody agrees, though. While things are undoubtedly looking up, the WEF itself warned in its recently published Global Risks report that recovery could be fragile and that the world was ill-equipped to cope with another financial crisis.
While business strategies are once again focused on growth, few companies expect on their home market to grow in the short term. Just a third believe that their own country holds high economic potential.
Instead, they bet on emerging markets like Asia, a region that 90% of bosses expect to deliver growth, followed by Latin America, Africa and the Middle East.
“Any industrial company – if they’re going to be a global leader – has to have a large presence in emerging markets,” says Ed Breen, chief executive of US conglomerate Tyco International.
Bosses from emerging economies agree. “Earlier, Europe and the US were our major export markets. Today, they are minor markets for us and the Latin American and African markets have become more important,” reports Sajjan Jindal, managing director of India’s JSW Steel.
Still, the expectation of growth translates into investment and jobs in most countries (apart from the Netherlands, although the small size of regional samples may distort the picture).
Just over half of the CEOs polled by PwC plan to hire new staff during the coming year, up from 39% year ago, while just 16% expect to cut jobs.
However, there is a shift in where the jobs will be created.
Juha Rantanen, chief executive of Finnish firm Outokumpu, says one of his “big issues” is that “our European-based customers are moving many of their operations off-shore”. Outokumpu has to follow, and has just built a service centre in Shanghai.
Governments’ budget deficits, volatile economic growth, over-regulation and skills shortages top the list of threats that worry chief executives.
Also on the list are fears of political instability and a shortage of natural resources, as well as climate change.
Surprisingly, inflation is listed by just a third of bosses as a concern, despite sharp prices rises in India and China, and soaring prices for commodities from iron ore to coffee and cotton.
For the survey, PwC interviewed 1,201 chief executives in 69 countries during the last three months of 2010.
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