Report Expects Egypt's Population To Reach 98 Million By Next Week

According to El Ahram Online, CAPMAS (Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics) announced that by next week the estimated Egyptian population will reach 98 million, a 7 million person increase since 2012, at an average increase of 2.3 million a year. Of the 98 million Egyptians, 90 million reside within the country's borders while the remaining 8 million are expatriates living abroad.

Cairo takes the lead as the most crowded Governorate at a population of 9,437,000, while Giza comes in second place with 7,755,000 people, followed by Al-Sharqiya (part of the Nile Delta region) with 6,629,000 people. At this rate, Egypt will break the 100 million mark in a few years. The outstanding birthrate is not undermined by the average mortality age of 71 years, placing Egypt at the 107th lowest median mortality age. Previous attempts to control the population have failed; a national campaign to reach the public through infomercials and celebrity endorsements of contraceptive methods wasn't able to make a dent in the birthrate that has been steadily increasing over the years. Thirty years ago, the population in Egypt was 40,359,038 people - that is over a 100 per cent increase!

Egypt is already facing an unprecedented economic crisis, with foreign currency reserves being depleted at an outstanding rate. Staple food product imports such as wheat, which forms the bulk of the Egyptian diet, are paid for in foreign currency. This increase in population will without doubt lead to the eventual increase of the country's import, adding more strain to the country's foreign currency reserves. Such a large increase in population in such a short time is less than welcomed, and will definitely play a major role in undermining any economic growth. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is divided by the total population to give the per capita GDP; therefore, as the population continues to increase at this outstanding rate, the government will have to beef up domestic production to be able to compromise the high increase in populous if any growth is to manifest on the charts.