The fate of Egypt’s second term school text books is up in the air after 20 print houses said they are not able to print school material over losses caused by last week’s currency flotation.
The deputy chief of the Printing Chamber at the Federation of Egyptian Industries, Khaled Abdo, told Ahram Online that a decisive meeting of the chamber will take place Monday to discuss the crisis. Abdo said the chamber may vote to sanction a decision by all 80 print houses in the country not to print second term books.
On Sunday, an education ministry source told Al-Ahram Arabic news website that the 20 print houses declined to print the books to avoid losses due to the gap between the dollar’s official rate prior to the flotation, which stood at EGP 8.88, and the price following flotation, now at EGP 16.
Last week, Egypt's central bank decided to float the country's currency as part of a set of reforms aimed at alleviating a dollar shortage and stabilising the country's flagging economy.
The ministry source said that the cost of printing has doubled since the pound flotation.
According to the source, print houses face losses of EGP 600,000 with the new pound rates, and are opting to pay the penalty clause of EGP 75,000 for violating their government contract instead of incurring losses.
Egypt’s education minister El-Helali El-Sherbini has decided to ask Prime Minister Sherif Ismail to intervene to avert a crisis, sources told Ahram Arabic news website.
This is the second time this year that the printing of school text books has faced a crisis. The printing of first term books was threatened by rising costs before authorities intervened to ensure production.
Egypt annually imports around 350,000 tonnes of printing paper.
