Road to recovery a long one for Egypt

Telecommunications, for example, still faces an ongoing drop in revenues.

Khaled Hegazy, Vodafone Egypt's director for external affairs, offers a snapshot of the initial impact. "We had over 900 base stations that were completely shut down and looted," he says. "Six branches, including our flagship store, were completely destroyed. We incurred a massive hit over a short period of time."

But the violence and protests of the revolution are just one of many forces that have conspired to suck the life out of businesses in every quarter of the economy.

Revenues are shrinking "because there are less tourists coming, because the Egyptian economy is shrinking, because foreign direct investment is shrinking, because investors are afraid to pump money into sectors like real estate and tourism", Mr Hegazy says.

Before the revolution the information and communications technology sector had been growing at a rate of more than 13 per cent a year. It had also been one of Egypt's leading generators of new jobs.