How are Enterprise readers feeling heading into 2017? We think you’re reasonably optimistic, given the annus horribilis that’s now drawing to an end. While 68% of you thought 2016 was a bad year in which to do business in Egypt, 61% of you expect business conditions will improve in the new year, 60% of you think the economy will be doing better in six months’ time, and almost 50% of you see your company or fund increasing its investments in Egypt before the end of the first half of 2017.

You’re a fairly self-confident lot: 50% of respondents expect they’ll be doing better against the competition six months from now, and while you’re slightly more predisposed than not to the idea of moving possessions or wealth away from Egypt, more respondents than not have no intention of leaving Omm El Donia behind.

You’re also being somewhat conservative in your budgeting: 42% of you are forecasting a USD : EGP exchange rate of EGP 18.51 or above, but only 33% of you see the currency in that band by mid-year.

Despite all the chatter about a possible bubble, real estate was your number-one pick for the sector that will beat market expectations in 2017 (just over 9% of respondents), followed closely by banking (just under 9%), export-oriented businesses food and financial services. (You can check out our “word cloud” of your responses to that question at the end of the survey graphs, below.)

Coffee is just fractionally more important than kids in terms of what gets you out of bed in the morning. Both are followed closely by family, your alarm and … Enterprise. (Our parents did not vote a few hundred times each — we checked.)

Some of the best (and / or most entertaining) reader comments we received on the survey form are presented for your reading pleasure in On Your Way Out