Egypt’s President raises minimum wage by 50% to 194$

• President Sisi of Egypt increased the minimum wage of employees of both sectors by 50% to $194 and increased the tax threshold to 60,000 pounds up from 45,000 pounds.
• The Pound has been seeing improvements and is increasing slightly in value going from 70 pounds to the dollar to 60 pounds to the dollar.
• Egypt’s economy has taken a big hit since the Gaza-Israel crisis and the reduction of traffic coming through the Suez Canal, one of the major points of trade for Egypt.

The President of Egypt passed a bill to increase the minimum wage of people working in Egypt by 50% ($194) 6000 Egyptian Pounds.

Sisi also directed the Egyptian government to raise the tax threshold from 45,000 pounds ($1,456)

To 60,000 pounds ($1941) an increase of 33% for employees of both the private and public sectors.

The increase will take place in March as a part of an “urgent social protection package” costing almost USD6 billion.

Recently set at 30.85 Pounds to the dollar in March, it was traded for 70 pounds to the dollar on the black market is now being traded for 60 pounds for the dollar.

The salaries of state workers also saw an increase ranging from USD32.37 to USD38.84 on top of their earlier salary.

These are efforts due to the price hikes that took place in January including electricity, metro tickets, telecommunications and other services.

The country’s foreign reserves increased slightly to $35.25 billion in January from $35.22 billion in December, as reported by the central bank on Monday, the annual inflation rate dropped to 33.7% in December from 34.6% in November, which was a record high of 38.0% in September, according to the state statistics agency CAPMAS. Mohamed Hendawy reported the news, while Nayera Abdallah wrote about it. Kevin Liffey, Philippa Fletcher, and Nick Macfie edited the article.

Last Thursday, Ivanna Vladkova Hollar, the IMF mission chief for Egypt, announced that significant progress had been made in the discussions regarding a comprehensive policy package. The package is an essential requirement to reach a Staff Level Agreement for the combined first and second reviews.