Cairo: Textbooks are the latest casualty of Egypt’s recent flotation of its battered currency. The country’s print houses this week threatened to stop printing schoolbooks unless the government revises pre-flotation deals.
“Print houses affiliated to the private sector and press institutions have said it is impossible for them to continue printing schoolbooks due to the heavy losses they will incur after the pound flotation,” Ahmad Jaber, head of the non-governmental Chamber of the Printing Industry, said.
Earlier this month, Egypt floated its pound in an unprecedented move aimed at ending a thriving currency black market that drained the country’s foreign currency reserves.
The step was taken more than a week before the International Monetary Fund approved a $12-billion loan over three years to prop up Egypt’s ailing economy.
The pound float has hiked prices of many commodities, including print materials.
“Print houses are expected to apologise to the Ministry of Education for not continuing to print books even if they have to pay fines for violating contracts,” Jaber of the Chamber of the Printing Industry said.
He added that prices of printing paper and materials have almost doubled as a result of pound flotation.
“The Ministry of Education has not responded to the chamber’s demands and the minister has ignored its request for a crisis meeting to try to find solutions that will allow print houses to continue printing schoolbooks but without facing losses.”
The chamber called on Prime Minister Sharif Esmail to intervene in order to defuse the crisis by agreeing on a “fair deal”. The call came at an emergency meeting by the chamber’s members held this week.
The semi-official newspaper Al Ahram quoted an unnamed official at the Ministry of Education as saying that 20 print houses have already rejected compliance with contracts struck with the ministry before the pound flotation.
Minister of Education Al Helali Al Sherbini, however, downplayed the situation.
“I have no idea about withdrawal of any printing houses due to the dollar crisis,” he said on Tuesday. “I’ll communicate with the Books Sector at the ministry to know the truth.”
The brewing crisis threatens delivery of textbooks to tens of thousands of students in the second semester that starts in Egypt in February.
The November 3 flotation allowed the local currency to officially soar from 8.8 Egyptian pounds against the dollar to more than 15 pounds on Wednesday.
Egypt’s foreign currency reserves have dwindled from their peak $36 billion in 2010 to $19 billion in October this year.
The decline is blamed on the unrest that has gripped the country following the 2011 uprising and hard hit tourism, a main foreign currency earner for this country of 91 million population.
