They claim that targeting multinationals will destroy the economy of Egypt.
According to this view, the economy of Egypt can only thrive if the revenues from both manufacturing and sales are delivered into the accounts of foreign companies rather than to support domestic industry, and if most of the state budget is transferred into foreign banks to pay debts; and if the largest private sector employer in Egypt (agriculture), is taken over by huge food corporations which will control agricultural production from start to finish.
According to this view, the only way for Egypt’s economy to prosper is if the Egyptian workforce positions itself as a point in the supply chain of multinational companies providing cheap labor.
Needless to say, this view is based on a profound level of indoctrination into the official neoliberal narrative which encourages slaves to be proud of their masters, and to think of their master’s prosperity as their own, even while they themselves are malnourished and struggling to survive.
This misunderstanding, this sense of dependency on multinationals, may not be possible to remedy accept by the eventual establishment of a genuinely self-reliant economy. So, at least, those who hold this irrational fear should be assured that the strategy does not seek to expel multinationals (as I have stated many times), but rather it seeks to leverage their power for the public good, and to subsequently regulate their activities in Egypt (as they are regulated in other countries), so that there will be mutual benefit, instead of benefit exclusively for them.
I am not really sure how protecting the economy, strengthening domestic industry, retaining revenues, and putting more money into the pockets of the population, can be rationally regarded as destroying the economy, unless by “economy” you mean the dividends of super-rich shareholders.