Can privatization save Egypt’s railways? The Egyptian government is seeking partnerships with private and international companies to improve and manage the country’s dilapidated railway network. A paramedic speaks with a man next to an overturned passenger carriage at the scene of a railway accident in the city of Toukh in Egypt s central Nile Delta province of Qalyubiya on April 18, 2021. - AYMAN AREF/AFP via Getty Images
May 8, 2021
CAIRO After three train accidents in Egypt within one month left dozens of people wounded or dead, Egyptian Transportation Minister Kamel al-Wazir said in a press release April 21 that there are plans for a number of new trains on Egypt’s railways to be managed by international companies. The plan, he added, aims to provide better services and bring modern expertise to Egypt.
A sign of crisis
Egypt s military government is amassing debts to international lenders at record rates. With fiscal austerity measures biting, the country s poor and middle class are struggling to get by. By Tom Stevenson
On 29 September, the Central Bank of Egypt released statistics showing the country s total foreign debt had risen 41 per cent, to $79 billion, in a single year. Egypt s debt totalled $34.4 billion, half current levels, as recently as 2012. Foreign debt has risen to 34 per cent of GDP according to central bank figures.
Analysis conducted by Salma Hussein, a researcher in economic and social justice at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), and the author of a 2016 study on Egypt s debt, shows changes in the character of and politics associated with the debt. There is a rapid increase in foreign debt since November 2016, and when you look, the central bank is responsible for most of this debt, meaning there is a huge amount of foreign debt that is