CAIRO: Egypt will launch a scheme on Saturday to reduce its budget deficit by selling plots of land near Cairo to Egyptians living abroad, the housing minister said on Tuesday, with the aim of raising $15 billion over four years.
| Okay, as an ex-pat Egyptian I can put my excess cash (mostly stolen and taken out of the country in the first place) into the Caymans ... hmmm, nah, too far away. Okay, I can buy a fashionable apartment on the Left Bank in Paris ... hmmm, nah, too many infidels for now. Okay, maybe a country house in Mauritania ... hmmm, nah, it's Mauritania after all. Say, I got it! I'll buy a house back in the mother land that's about to implode! |
The deficit has widened since last year's popular uprising hammered the economy, cut tax revenue and led to demands for higher salaries and more benefits. The government has forecast a budget deficit of 144 billion Egyptian pounds ($23.9 billion) in the fiscal year to June 30, about 8.7 percent of gross domestic product.
| Yet no one seems to ask how it is that Egypt gets itself into this sort of trouble time and time again. |
Housing Minister Fathi Abdelaziz el-Baradei told reporters the government planned to offer an initial 8,000 plots in at least two satellite cities near Cairo via a website, and said Egyptians living abroad would be able to reserve the plots as of Saturday.
They include 800 square meter lots in Sheikh Zayed City that the government will sell for $675 per square meter and 400 square meter lots in Badr City for $250 per square meter.
The government said in a 10-page economic plan it sent to parliament this month that it hoped to raise as much as $15 billion from the land sales over four years. It is also working on plans to raise foreign currency by selling certificates of deposit to Egyptians living abroad and Islamic sukuk bonds to foreign institutions.
| What kind of idiot foreign institutions would be so foolish as to put their investors' funds at risk by investing them in Egyption sukuk bonds, whatever those are? |
Egypt has been negotiating a $3.2 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund, which now has a team in Cairo, to help it avert a fiscal crisis.
| Don't worry, Champ will bow and Uncle Sugar will cover it... |
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