Egypt: Official Calls to Rationalize Spending amid Rising Prices

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Sunday - 9 October 2022

The Egyptian government stressed that it would continue to subsidize bread and provide a safe reserve of goods, meat and poultry, amid official and media calls to “rationalize spending due to high prices.”

Minister of Supply and Internal Trade Dr. Ali Al-Moselhi said President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi’s directives to raise the reserve of strategic commodities, especially wheat, and to provide the necessary financial funds for this purpose, helped confront the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian-Ukrainian crisis.

The minister noted that his country “has a reserve of wheat for a period that can last 6.6 months, a reserve of seven months of frozen poultry, and self-sufficiency of live poultry.”

He added that the annual bread subsidy budget amounted to 51 billion Egyptian pounds, adding that bread subsidies “may reach 73 billion pounds during this year.”

The Dandara Economic Forum, which concluded on Friday, called for the need to “rationalize consumption according to the actual needs in order to confront the economic crisis.”

Last month, Egyptian and media officials conveyed assurances about the country’s “safe economic position” that coincided with the announcement of official measures to “maximize agricultural production” and support “food security.”

Meanwhile, Minister of Local Development Major General Hisham Amna called on the supervisors of Sanad Al-Khair initiative, which was launched by the ministry to provide basic food commodities to citizens, to intensify their presence in popular neighborhoods and most needy areas.

In a statement on Saturday, the minister said that the initiative launched in March came in implementation of Sisi’s directives, with the aim to unite all the state’s efforts to support citizens in the most needy and popular areas, and to provide their food needs at low prices and high quality.