Africa

Home page

Africa

Egyptâ€™s Banks to Stay Closed This Week

15 February 2011 21:08 (UTC +04:00)

Banks were closed on Monday because of the strikes and again on Tuesday, a Muslim holiday marking the birth of the Prophet Mohammed. With the threat of more labor unrest, the Egyptian central bank announced that the nation’s banks would remain closed Wednesday and Thursday as well, heading into the country’s weekend. It said the banks would reopen Sunday.

The anti-government protests leading up to last week’s resignation of President Hosni Mubarak have exacted a heavy toll on the country’s economy. The strikes also prompted the nation’s stock exchange to once again postpone its reopening, this time from Wednesday to sometime next week.

Strikes before and after Mr. Mubarak’s resignation have crippled much of the nation’s commerce. Thousands of government workers and those in industrial sectors have joined work stoppages calling for higher pay, better working conditions and the ouster of corrupt union officials linked to Mr. Mubarak’s rule.

Egypt’s Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit is calling on the international community to provide financial assistance to help the country’s economy. Gheit said Tuesday that Egypt’s economy has been â€œgravely affectedâ€ by the political turmoil in the country. He called his diplomatic counterparts in the United States, Britain and Saudi Arabia and asked for aid. There was no immediate response from the three countries.

The strikes on Tuesday were mostly halted with the religious holiday. But Egypt’s military rulers again called for an end to the labor unrest, saying the result of continued strikes would be â€œdisastrous.â€ The official MENA news agency quoted the country’s new leaders as saying that the economic and social turmoil in Egypt could not be resolved until the strikes and sit-ins ended.

A French bank estimated that at the height of the two-plus weeks of anti-government protests, Egypt’s economy was losing $310 million a day. Government officials and private analysts have subsequently said that the growth of the Egyptian economy this year â€” once projected at 6 percent â€” could to fall to 3.4 percent or less.

Despite the strikes and closure of popular tourist sites, one linchpin of the Egyptian economy â€” the Suez Canal â€” remained open during the unrest. But even it was closed for four hours Tuesday, when a ship ran aground before it was freed and operations resumed.