1.  Awareness and Education:  This issue is an inherent obstacle of any new idea, product or service, but 
     is amplified when dealing with a developing country with lower literacy rates,  a lower GDP and the
     remnants of an inward-looking import substitution driven economy. 

2.  Market Size :  The  Internet community, representing 0.18% of the Egyptian population is too small a 
     market for the Egyptian business community to specifically invest in new technology to reach and the 
     return on investment (ROI) on this outlay is questionable.

3.  E-commerce Infrastucture:  Egypt lacks a Cetificate Authority to introduce a neutral intermediary and
     guarantor of parties involved in e-commerce transactions.  In addition, Egypt lacks widespread 
     acceptance of a secure transaction protocol.  The underlying reason for their absence is the the lack of a 
     financially feasible business case; this is directly linked to the limited market size.

4.  Telecommunications Infrastructure and Planning:  As discussed in other areas of this study, the cost of 
      bandwidth, both for domestic and international connectivity is still overly expensive, thereby limiting the
      connectivity available and increasing Web lag times.  While teledensity has made tremendous advances
      in the past decade, it still remains at 11 telephone lines for every hundred persons.

5.  Financial Services and Infrastructure:  Out of a 102 licensed Egyptian banks, only six provide provide
     credit cards. The total number issued is estimated at 120,000, thus limiting the primary method of 
     payment on the Internet to this small market segment.  Availability of banking and capital market 
     information  is extremely limited, thereby limiting a very popular part of Web activity.

6.  Legal System:  Applicability of existing statutes by an overburdened and unfamiliar judiciary.

7.  Government Role:  While championing IT and Internet expansion, failure of the government and the 
     public sector to actively embrace e-commerce deprives the effort of a strategic champion.

8.  Pricing:  As discussed in the Internet Activity section,  the costs associated with Internet access and 
     e-commerce business costs are high, particularly, lacking a sizeable marketshare.

9.  Social and Psychological Drawbacks:  Cultural issues in both the public and commercial sectors.