美国国家公共电台 NPR--Egypt faces a deepening economic crisis. Is the government taking steps to fix it?（在线收听）

Egypt faces a deepening economic crisis. Is the government taking steps to fix it?

Transcript

Egypt's economic crisis compels people to make hard spending choices, and challenges the government to accept more foreign aid to support a rapidly growing population.

This audio was produced by Lisa Weiner and edited by Jacob Conrad.

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Egypt is the Middle East's biggest country, but it is facing a deepening economic crisis. The government has been borrowing money to keep feeding its 105 million people with the help of subsidies. NPR's Aya Batrawy was just there, and she's with us now from Dubai to tell us more. Aya, thank you so much for joining us.

AYA BATRAWY, BYLINE: Thanks for having me, Michel.

MARTIN: So tell us what you heard from people as you went around Cairo.

BATRAWY: Well, let me just explain to you why everyone I spoke to is saying they have been impacted in some way. You have, first of all, the currency devaluing over 50% compared to the U.S. dollar in just the last year. And then you have, in addition to that, food inflation, which is above 60%. So this is being felt by everyone, just differently. So for average Egyptians, it means a lifestyle change. It means you can't afford chicken, so you try to substitute chicken with lentils or not being able to give your kids french fries 'cause you can't afford the cooking oil to make that. And for even poorer Egyptians, it means just more hardship and insecurity.

Even the government advised people to eat chicken feet as a replacement to, actually, chicken meat. And that's not something that's native to Egyptian diets or cuisine, and it was seen as an insult to many people. But even wealthy Egyptians are feeling it. They can't travel abroad anymore. And even I had a friend of mine tell me her daughter asked her the other day for Frosted Flakes. And she was like, no, it's 600 pounds. It's imported. We can't afford that today.

MARTIN: And I think a lot of people know Ramadan - the holy month of Ramadan began a few days ago. And you were there as people were stocking up or trying to. Like, what was the mood like?

BATRAWY: So this is a festive season, and the streets are lit up with colorful lights. And there's Ramadan decorations everywhere. And it's a time for family gathering and intense worship. So that kind of helps lift the mood. But it's also a time of zakat, which is a Muslim principle of charity and charitable giving and giving away of your money. So this definitely helps offset a lot of that for the poor. And that's where I met Fatma Hassan. She's a grandmother in her 70s, and I met her at a local charity office in Cairo where she was receiving a Ramadan food box, which was going to be filled with some pasta, tea, sugar, oil and other basics. So here's what she said to me. She says it's been two months since they've eaten chicken. She pointed at her grandson that was next to her and says he keeps asking her...

FATMA HASSAN: (Non-English language spoken).

BATRAWY: "Aren't we going to eat chicken, Grandma?"

HASSAN: (Laughter).

BATRAWY: But as is common among Egyptians, she keeps a sense of humor about everything. But she says she's never seen chicken as expensive before. So Ramadan is a time of sacrifice and intense worship, and people are approaching that with this spirit.

MARTIN: Of course, now I want to know, why is this economic crisis happening? How did such a big country get into a situation like this?

BATRAWY: Well, there have been huge development projects happening over the past several years, and the government says these were all needed. But these are dollar-intensive projects, and they don't necessarily create new industries or new long-lasting jobs. And this was all happening just as last year's Russian invasion of Ukraine took place. And that meant that grain prices went soaring. But Egypt is the world's biggest importer of wheat and grains, and most of that wheat and grains was coming from the Black Sea region of Russia and Ukraine. So those high prices, combined with foreign investors being jittery about Egypt and pulling out billions of dollars, really sent this economic crisis into freefall.

MARTIN: So, Aya, before we let you go, is the government taking steps to fix this? Are there any solutions being talked about?

BATRAWY: I mean, the solution for now is just to keep borrowing. But that's not a long-term solution because they're heavily in debt now to the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, Gulf Arab donors like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates. And lenders are asking the government to curtail cronyism and corruption and to allow more foreign investment in the private sector to really grow. And they're doing all this as they're trying to boost tourism, especially around the area of the pyramids. But as Egypt is trying to figure all of this out, the clock is ticking. The population is rapidly expanding and so are the country's needs.

MARTIN: That is NPR's Aya Batrawy. She's in Dubai, sharing some of her reporting from Egypt. Aya, thank you so much.

BATRAWY: Thanks so much.