CAIRO - A looming financial crisis will slow down work on this year's “Reading for All” project, which was launched 20 years ago by former First Lady Suzanne Mubarak, the Minister of Culture has warned. "We are slowing the pace of the annual ‘Reading for All' project due to a financial crisis and a political problem," said Minister Emad Abu Ghazi, whose ministry is in charge of publishing hundreds of low-priced Arabic books each summer. The project's publications have carried the photo of and an introduction by the wife of deposed president Hosni Mubarak, which has become a sort of a political embarrassment to the Ministry because the majority of the readers are young people. Abu Ghazi said that the cost of publishing books had nearly doubled, adding to the financial troubles of the Ministry, which is battling a serious debt crisis. He said that the Ministry would not be able to release all the titles due to a delay in payment from the Government. "The Ministry may decide to halt publishing many of the books for the time being to secure financial aid from the Government," Abu Ghazi said. The Reading for All Festival has become an annual event since the early eighties that aims initially to encourage students in schools and universities to read. It aims at re-printing popular books at reasonable prices to encourage ordinary people to read and make better use of public libraries.
