Last year will be remembered for the surge of uprisings that rippled across the Arab world, particularly in Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco and Libya. The seismic change these countries have since undergone in confronting the Arab Spring combined with the challenges of a stagnating global economy, the protracted debt crisis in the eurozone and a politically volatile environment have caused severe disruption to economic activity - evident in the sharp decline in trading on their respective stock exchanges. The Egyptian exchange (EGX) ranked globally as the worst-performing exchange in 2011, falling by about 35% as a result of the violent political protests that led to the bourse being suspended for more than seven weeks and a sharp slump in equity valuations.
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