But as Egypt endures its worst economic crisis in decades, many shoppers can barely afford the tomatoes and cucumbers that are a staple of the poor. They hurry past to a nearby square in the hope of buying cartons of government-subsidized food.
Egypt is the Arab world’s most populous country, with more than 90 million people, and one of the world’s biggest food importers. The protests that swept Egypt and the Arab world five years ago and frightened off foreign investors and tourists collided with decades of a deeply inefficient, state-controlled economy.
After the Egyptian government loosened exchange rates this month, the official value of the Egyptian pound plunged by almost half. One U.S. dollar bought less than nine Egyptian pounds before the devaluation, and these days buys more than 17 pounds. That means that anything imported – from sugar to medicine – became much more expensive and many items disappeared from the market.
“I went to all the shops and even if you can afford to buy sugar you can’t find it,” says Saleh Attiya, a furniture maker out shopping with his son.
“A kid like that – how will he drink his milk without sugar?” he said, pointing to 6-year-old son, also named Saleh. Attiya the father freely admits that his own missing teeth could be due to his habit of drinking each small glass of tea with four or five spoons of sugar. But for millions of Egypt’s poor, sugar has been the only luxury they could afford.
To ease the hardship of rising prices and broad subsidy cuts required by a $12 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund, the Egyptian government sent the army into neighborhoods with 8 million food boxes at bargain prices. Egypt’s official figures indicate almost one-third of Egyptians are in poverty, defined as living on about $50 a month or less.
Near the weekly market, a crowd of Egyptians, many of them elderly, crowded around a truck with subsidized food packages for sale. They sold out within minutes, leaving people shouting, “I want a carton!” and holding up tattered bills even as soldiers slammed shut the doors of the empty truck.
The lucky ones walked away with a cardboard box containing margarine, macaroni, beans, tea, sugar and tomato paste. All for about $1.50 – less than half the normal price.
The IMF loan is part of a wider economic restructuring aimed at encouraging investment and creating private sector jobs.
The plunge in the currency has also sparked a shortage of medicines in pharmacies and hospitals, from contraceptives to cancer medicines. With the lower currency, companies are essentially paying twice as much to import drugs they are selling at the old prices due to price caps set by the government. Some have stopped importing pharmaceuticals altogether.