Previous attempts to change the price of the country’s heavily subsidised staple led to deadly riots in 1977
A bakery worker carries fresh bread in Cairo, Egypt. Picture: REUTERS/AMR ABDALLAH DALSH
Bread is currently sold at 0.05 Egyptian pounds per loaf to more than 60-million Egyptians, who are allocated five loaves a day under a sprawling subsidy programme that also includes pasta and rice, and costs billions of dollars. “Nothing stays stagnant like this for 20 or 30 years, with people saying that this number can’t be touched.”
Hussein Abu Saddam, head of the farmer’s syndicate, said: “The decision is right and comes at a very suitable time. It helps us finish with the old practices and customs, in which the president was always afraid of touching bread prices, fearing the outcry of the poor.”
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