The UK has a capable PM and I want to help it achieve its great potential

When I was a teenager, my family’s assets were confiscated by the state. Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser, under the influence of his Soviet mentors, nationalised the cotton industry taking my father’s business from him. But he did not stop there. Nasser was convinced that private property rights should not stand in the way of his socialist creed and took my family’s land, homes and other assets.

My life changed overnight. I was at university in the United States but, from this moment on, my family could not support me. I had to trade in my car, knuckle down and work as a waiter to pay my way through college. I came to know what it is like to go hungry and to struggle to pay bills.

In Egypt, my father was trying to support the family on a meagre salary.

This left me with a lifelong belief in the importance of political stability, property rights and rule of law.

My father was not a man to be knocked down. He set up a cotton business in Sudan only for that to be nationalised too. Undeterred, when Anwar Sadat came to office in Egypt he returned and began the job of rebuilding the family business.

I was honoured to continue that work with my brothers. We diversified away from commodities and worked with firms such as General Motors and Caterpillar. Today our business has 60,000 employees around the world. With that success came responsibility.

I created a not-for-profit organisation to offer financial support to businesswomen in Egypt, and we have given more than four million loans. In 2005, I stepped back from my business to serve in the Egyptian government and spent nearly four years trying to modernise the country’s transport infrastructure.

When I finished that, I knew there was one country where I wanted to base my business, where the rule of law is paramount, property rights are respected and with an enviable record of political stability. This country – the United Kingdom. I believe this country has a very capable Prime Minister, one who understands how growth is generated in the modern economy. He gets the importance of technology and innovation. He can make the modern economy work for all UK citizens.

My confidence in the Prime Minister is why I was proud to become a senior Treasurer of the Conservative Party in December. I want to give him the best chance of having a full five-year term and so have donated £5million to the party’s election fighting fund. I look at what he has achieved in his first months in office and think what he could do in five years. I love and respect this country. It has welcomed my family and me so warmly. It has a proud history and noble traditions. I believe it has great days ahead of it.

I want to do what I can to help this country, the place where I am watching my grandchildren grow up, achieve its great potential.