This research is a survey of unregistered businesses conducted in Egypt, Arab Rep. between August and October 2008 at the same time with Egypt 2008 Enterprise Survey. 500 informal businesses were surveyed.
The objective of World Bank firm-level surveys is to obtain feedback from enterprises in client countries on the state of the private sector, assess constraints to private sector growth and create statistically significant business environment indicators that are comparable across countries.
Informal surveys target unregistered enterprises, which in some countries make up a significant part of the economy. Understanding how informal businesses function and why they prefer to remain unregistered could help implement changes in government - business relationships.
Informal survey questionnaires are a shorter, tailored to unregistered businesses, version of Enterprise Survey questionnaires. The Egypt 2008 Informal Survey topics include general information about a business, infrastructure and services, access to finance, labor regulations, business-government relationship, legal environment, productivity and capacity, bribery and obstacles to registration.