CAIRO - To deal with price hikes, 40-year-old housewife Manal Omar raises chickens to sell their eggs, and buys subsidized commodities and cheap bread. Omar's husband works in a plumbing plant and earns 10 Egyptian pounds (about 1.68 US dollar) a day. "But I have to pay 400 Egyptian pounds monthly for my apartment rent, so it's a very tough thing," complained Omar, who lives in Giza, west of Egyptian capital Cairo. Many Egyptian people find their life hard due to the remarkable increases in the prices of food commodities. Even the owners of the shops don't know what to do with this. The wheat three months ago was 2.5 Egyptian pounds per kilogram, now it is 3.5 Egyptian pounds, tomatoes were 2 pounds per kilogram then, now they are 4 Egyptian pounds, according to Atef Mohamed, a greengrocer in the Sixth of October City. Food prices have been a great concern of Egyptians. The monthly inflation, of which food prices are a major driver, has kept at around 10 per cent on the average over the past three years. In March, Egypt's inflation was 11.8 per cent in general with 16 percent specially for food commodities. More than 40 per cent of the country's 80-million population live less than 2 dollars a day, in addition to a high unemployment rate estimated by some analysts to be as high as 20 per cent. Poor Egyptians have to spend the majority of their income on food. "Now I buy half of what I did before because of the increase in the prices," said Omar. Aliaa Mohamed, a 30-year-old teacher in Cairo, said her monthly salary was 900 Egyptian pounds, but her life was still difficult as she had to pay 600 Egyptian pounds for school fees of her two children. There are some signs of improvement. She said the current government had been much more responsive to the demands of the poor. "I see that the caretaker government of Prime Minister Essam Sharaf is doing its best in dealing with the situation in Egypt in general," she said, "we had asked for our ration cards two years ago and no one responded to us, but after the protests in January, they gave them to us right away, which is a very positive indicator." Mass protests which began on Jan. 25 forced former President Hosni Mubarak to end his 30-year-old rule on Feb. 11 and the sacking of the former government led by Ahmed Nazef. Widespread corruption in the former regime, which many Egyptians believe, has been one of the basic reasons for their plight. As inflation remains high, the salaries of ordinary citizens have not seen a moderate increase. The minimum salary was just raised last year to 400 Egyptian pounds. The government has increased the salary of public servants in April and is planning more reforms in this regard. Ahmed Ali, owner of a supermarket in Cairo, said the increase in the prices has to do with two other reasons. First, there is a harvest season after which the prices will decrease. Second, it is the importation of some commodities, he said. Khaled Hamza, an imports trader, said the general increase in the prices in the world was also a factor of the inflation in Egypt. To solve this problem, the agricultural authorities should provide the farmers with seeds and fertilizers at cheap prices and provide them with irrigation facilities, Hamza said. The production costs increase will lead to rising prices, he explained. Youmna El Hamaky, professor of economics at Cairo University, said that the stock exchange is the mirror of economy in Egypt but not the only one. We need to focus on the available capabilities right now like industry and agriculture, she added. Strikes in industrial sectors should stop to increase the productivity and decrease the imports, the professor said. She added Egypt must pay more attention to agricultural research and work on self-sufficiency. The government should also launch more projects and increase the productivity to improve the Egyptian economy, Hamaky said. (1 US dollar = 5.94 Egyptian pounds)
