The Sphinx's shadow extends over the Egyptian economy. The answer to the political chaos is, for the moment, a curfew that makes Cairo's future enigmatic, not only on a social level.
The state of emergency declared by the interim government is already taking a toll on businesses and the economy of the capital. He brings it back Al Jazeera, in a long report on the side effects of the curfew. The Stock Exchange lost 17 billion Egyptian pounds an hour and a half after opening and Cairo, a city that generally never sleeps, is forced to sleep at 7 in the evening by the closure of streets, bars and restaurants.
"Our sales have decreased by 70 percent and if we continue like this we will be forced to close within a month - shopkeeper Tareq Mohamed Abdulla told Al Jazeera - I have never seen anything like this, not even on January 25th [ refers to the 2011 riots]. I've already had to make layoffs."
Mohamed Ali, a young sales agent for a food company that supplies gas stations, is afraid of losing his job soon: "We've already had to reduce production because demand has dropped - said the 27-year-old - people don't stop more at petrol pumps and does not buy our products”.
Things started to get worse after the protests of June 30, which led to the deposition of President Morsi. Political instability turned into widespread violence, culminating in one of the bloodiest weeks in the country's history and the declaration of a state of emergency.
In reality, Egypt is a nation used to living under a curfew. But this one, with the security forces authorized to fire on anyone who might pose a threat to institutions, is different.
"Our operations have been reduced by 80 percent - says Mohamed Saber, director of an exchange office in Nasr City, not far from where a huge pro-Morsi sit-in was violently evicted - People were selling US dollars but few bought them. Local businesses generally pay for imported products in US currency, and if few people buy dollars this means that there is a collapse of imports and trade”.
And while the civilian economy sinks, the military remains a fortified island. “The military budget is practically a black box – comments Ibrahim el-Hassawy, an economic researcher at the National Planning Institute – nobody knows where the money comes from and where it is going. The army is as if it were a separate state”.
