To give another example of the sprawling corporate imperial system…
The Mansour Group in Egypt serves as a mechanism for Multinational corporations to operate in the country. From mega-companies like General Motors to Microsoft, IBM to McDonald’s, Mansour Group represents the interests of corporations that have a combined net income of well over $100 billion, approximately half the entire GDP of Egypt itself.
The political power of these companies is immeasurable, collectively spending millions of dollars lobbying the government, and millions more financing neoliberal think tanks and NGOs to influence social policy and civil society to serve their corporate interests.
When they come to your country, it is for the same purpose.
Through the Mansour Group, General Motors is a 10% owner of a parts manufacturing center in Egypt that ships units for assembly to plants GM owns in Kenya and Russia. This means that the Mansour Group facility is essentially a means by which GM lowers the costs of its supply chain; basically providing logistics support for what amounts to transfers internal to GM.
In this scenario, GM profits and the Mansour brothers profit, but almost none of the financial benefits of manufacturing and trade actually reach the Egyptian economy.
(Incidentally, Israel plays a role in General Motors’ supply chain as well, though in the far more lucrative capacity of advanced technology research and development, partially funded by US government funding due to the millions spent on corporate lobbying.)