AKIPRESS.COM - Egyptian tycoon Naguib Sawiris, whose family controls the Orascom corporate empire, said he would invest $1 billion in Egypt in 2014 and warned that urgent measures were needed to save the economy from collapse, reported Reuters.

Nearly three years of turmoil following the ouster of autocrat Hosni Mubarak in 2011 have decimated investment and tourism in the most populous Arab state.

Finances are in a precarious state, with a massive deficit. But the army-backed government, armed with a $12 billion aid package from the Gulf, has turned down the conventional wisdom of IMF-prescribed austerity measures.

Sawiris said Egypt could not go on burning $1.5 billion per month in subsiding bread and fuel and other products without generating revenue.

"This country for three years has been driven into the ground and is on the verge of collapse. We are bankrupt," he told Reuters in an interview. "My concern is that basically if we don't help very fast, move the economy upwards the country will go bust...It's that bad."

But the businessman, a member of the Christian minority that makes up about 10 percent of Egypt's population, still sees opportunities despite Egypt's latest political crisis, triggered by the army overthrow of elected Islamist President Mohamed Mursi in July.

"I would say in 2014 I have a budget of $1 billion that I am going to invest in Egypt in various sectors - industrial, agriculture, financial, telecommunications and Internet," he said in his luxurious Cairo office overlooking the Nile.

Sawiris said investors could capitalise on a lack of low-income housing and that they stood to gain in the energy and agriculture sectors.

"Real estate is cheap and there are a lot of good opportunities to buy factories," he said.

His Orascom group of companies is one of the biggest private sector employers in Egypt - providing more than 100,000 Egyptians with jobs according to Sawiris, who now runs a new investment firm Orascom Telecom, Media and Technology,

The eldest of three billionaire businessmen brothers also founded ONTV, a popular private television channel, and is a partner in Al-Masry Al-Youm daily newspaper.

Sawiris is an outspoken critic of Mursi, who hit his family with exceptional taxes.

Sawiris said he, like many secularist businessmen, backed calls for army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to run for president: "He is seen as a saviour," he said.

Sawiris expressed concerns over Egypt's financial dependence on Gulf Arab states, who opposed the Brotherhood and have firmly stood behind the army-backed government.

"Every year you will go to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and beg? Is this how we will feel proud about our country?" said Sawiris.

The Sawiris brothers built on their father Onsi's Orascom enterprise, at one time nationalised by President Gamal Abdel Nasser in the 1960s.