Dear MEL Topic Readers,
What chicken feet tell us about daily life in Egypt
Egypt is the most populous country in the Middle East with a population of a little over 100 million. Egypt’s long history and monuments attract many tourists from all over the world and generated about 5% of the gross domestic product, GDP, before the pandemic. But the country is facing a deepening economic crisis and the government has been borrowing money to keep feeding people with the help of subsidies and economic aid from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In fact, the currency devalued over 50% compared to the U.S. dollar in just the last year. Since Egypt heavily depends on food imports, food prices soared more than 60% over last year. Recently, the government advised people to eat chicken feet as a replacement for chicken meat, which is a popular part of chicken among some Asian countries. Even though some oil-rich Gulf countries like the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia invested in Egypt to help the economy, such financial support won’t last so long. As nearly half of the state’s revenue is used to pay back the debts, how long people can get the heavily government-subsidized bread is unclear.
Read the article and learn about how people in Egypt are struggling with inflation, especially food.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-64951519
What chicken feet tell us about daily life in Egypt
Egypt is the most populous country in the Middle East with a population of a little over 100 million. Egypt’s long history and monuments attract many tourists from all over the world and generated about 5% of the gross domestic product, GDP, before the pandemic. But the country is facing a deepening economic crisis and the government has been borrowing money to keep feeding people with the help of subsidies and economic aid from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In fact, the currency devalued over 50% compared to the U.S. dollar in just the last year. Since Egypt heavily depends on food imports, food prices soared more than 60% over last year. Recently, the government advised people to eat chicken feet as a replacement for chicken meat, which is a popular part of chicken among some Asian countries. Even though some oil-rich Gulf countries like the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia invested in Egypt to help the economy, such financial support won’t last so long. As nearly half of the state’s revenue is used to pay back the debts, how long people can get the heavily government-subsidized bread is unclear.
Read the article and learn about how people in Egypt are struggling with inflation, especially food.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-64951519
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