Business confidence in Egypt hit a 26-month high, “signalling strong optimism towards future growth prospects, with many expecting economic stability over the coming year,” according to October’s reading of the Emirates NBD PMI. Contractions in output, new orders, and employment all eased, the report showed even though they were “muted in comparison to the historical average.” The reading also showed softening in both output and input price inflation. “Job shedding among Egyptian non-oil private sector companies continued in October, thereby extending the current sequence of contraction to 29 months. Anecdotal evidence suggested a trend of firms not replacing retiring employees. That said, the rate of decline eased in the latest survey.” The reading of 48.4 in October increased from September’s 47.4, and came as “export orders increased on average last month, after declining in September. Encouragingly, business optimism in October was the highest in more than two years,” Khatija Haque, Head of MENA Research at Emirates NBD, commented.