Al-Beblawy, a career economist and former Finance Minister, has assumed the reins of a country in economic free fall. The value of the Egyptian pound has plummeted to record lows, foreign-currency reserves have dropped to less than half of the $36 billion held by the regime of former dictator Hosni Mubarak before he was ousted in February 2011. The budget deficit has climbed to more than 11% of the country’s GDP. Tourism, one of the anchors of Egypt’s foreign-currency cash flow, has never truly recovered from the 2011 revolution. Early signs from the beginning of 2013 showed a steady increase in the number of tourists over the previous two years. But many of those have been attracted by bargains offered by hotels slashing their prices to maintain occupancy numbers. And each new round of political unrest scares away another month or two of visitors. Read more: world.time/2013/07/14/egypts-real-disaster-away-from-political-turmoil-an-economy-in-freefall/#ixzz2Z5favGXq
Posted on: Mon, 15 Jul 2013 05:48:50 +0000
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