{"id":18703,"date":"2024-02-19T14:30:25","date_gmt":"2024-02-19T12:30:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/?p=18703"},"modified":"2026-10-09T03:00:02","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T01:00:02","slug":"ramadan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/ramadan\/","title":{"rendered":"Does the Economic Crisis Threaten Egyptians’ Ability to Keep Their Ramadan Traditions?"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the month of Ramadan approaches, a season dear to Egyptians’ hearts, they face economic challenges this year that threaten their joy in it. While they are used to welcoming it with food stocks, the wave of accelerating price rises is casting its shadow over Ramadan tables this year, as commodity prices rise almost daily. After the Central Bank of Egypt’s decision to raise interest rates<\/a> at the beginning of February, the repercussions of this decision moved to the parallel market, which effectively controls the prices of food and other goods.<\/p>\n

This situation raises questions about Egyptians’ ability to face these challenges and how to preserve the usual Ramadan rituals amid the high cost of living.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rising inflation rates, which reached 33.7% as the annual headline inflation rate and 34.2% as the core inflation rate in December 2023, also drove up the prices of citizens’ basic foodstuffs, especially with an unprecedented, record fall in the value of the local currency against the US dollar, which at the official rate stands at EGP 30.90 to the dollar, while on the parallel market, against which the actual price of goods in the Egyptian market is measured, it reached about EGP 62.5 to the dollar. At the same time, citizens are awaiting a new liberalisation of the local currency’s exchange rate, expected by many experts and specialists in line with the conditions of the International Monetary Fund, which binds the Cairo government with harsh reform conditions.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Gehad, a working woman in her forties and a mother of two, focuses on monitoring the prices of staple goods, fearing a new wave of increases will hit the markets before Ramadan, which could prevent her from buying the necessities she usually acquires as it arrives. She makes up for it by taking part in the participatory savings system, the “gameya”, to save money through equal monthly contributions, without interest or profits. She says: “I had to join. Every day I pay EGP 20, the value of two shares, and in the end I will get three thousand pounds (about USD 97.08 at the official rate) this February, to buy Ramadan supplies and needed goods, and at the end of March I will receive the value of the new share to buy Eid clothes for my two children”. This is how Gehad and women like her try to take part in “gameyas” to cover needs that cannot be met within the family’s monthly budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to a study<\/a> conducted by the American University in Cairo in 2018, 43% of Egyptians who have savings take part in gameyas. Despite the spread of digital gameyas, many still prefer traditional ones.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
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Yamish… A Burdensome Guest<\/h3>\n

Gehad works at a plastics factory in the Shubra El-Kheima district for a daily wage of EGP 120 (USD 3.8), and she also receives a pension from her late husband estimated at EGP 2,300 (USD 74.4). She says: “My work at the factory is seasonal, and I do not enjoy any social protection, insurance or health guarantees. Because work at the factory is linked to the market and the principle of supply and demand, it increases before the holiday seasons, then stops for about two unpaid weeks after each season; so I must set aside part of the money to spend during the stoppages, and I actually put aside EGP 15 (USD 0.48) of my daily wage for such a time”.<\/p>\n

As for the goods she intends to buy in preparation for the Ramadan season, she says she is preparing to buy the basic needs of sugar, oil, rice and ghee, and perhaps one kilogram of meat and two chickens. She adds: “I stopped buying all kinds of yamish three years ago because of their high prices, except dates”.<\/p>\n

Yamish is an Egyptian custom handed down since the time of the ancient Egyptians; the Fatimids revived it and linked it to the month of Ramadan. It consists of dried fruits and nuts, most notably dried apricots, figs, coconut, hazelnuts, peanuts, cashews and dried dates. Yamish did not escape the negative economic effects caused by the coronavirus pandemic, despite the association of Ramadan with citizens of all social classes buying yamish; the pandemic affected commodity prices, especially imported ones, causing demand to fall significantly. Its prices rose in 2021, amid the pandemic, by about 20% over the previous year, then rose by more than 30% last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to the average yamish prices we monitored in a field tour a few days ago, the average price of a kilo of dates reached EGP 27, compared with (EGP 10 to 25) last year, while the price of a kilo of raisins, which are dried grapes, reached EGP 272, compared with EGP 90 last year, a kilo of pistachios EGP 900 compared with EGP 280 in 2023<\/a>, dried apricot paste (qamar al-din) EGP 180 compared with EGP 35, and almonds EGP 668 compared with EGP 120 last year. A 700-gram pack of dates reached EGP 80, a kilogram of dried figs EGP 572, a kilogram of prunes about EGP 396 and dried apricots EGP 552.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Although the official dollar exchange rate has remained stable since last Ramadan at about EGP 30.9, the exchange rate on the parallel market rose to about EGP 73 and then fell in the past few days to EGP 63, which tripled the prices of Ramadan yamish<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Goods That Are Not Bought<\/h3>\n

Last November, Egyptians were surprised by an unprecedented rise in the price of sugar<\/a>, which reached EGP 55 (USD 1.7) before falling after the government<\/a> pumped 240,000 tonnes from the strategic stock into the markets to control prices. At the beginning of January it listed seven<\/a> basic goods (oil, sugar, rice, milk, white cheese, pasta and fava beans) as strategic goods whose prices may not be manipulated on the free market, where the price of a kilo of sugar reached about EGP 40 to 48, while its price was cut under a government initiative to be sold at EGP 27 a kilo, at one kilogram per family.<\/p>\n

Gehad explains that sugar is one of Ramadan’s essentials, as it is used in the Ramadan drink, especially as her savings are not enough to buy a carton of packaged juice or a ready-made Ramadan drink that could cost her more than EGP 20 a day, according to last year’s prices. She adds: “The only solution is to make juices from cheap fruit or dates, and although I am registered among the beneficiaries of ration subsidies, my share does not exceed two kilos of sugar”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to official data<\/a> for 2021 and 2022, the number of beneficiaries of ration subsidies is 63.6 million people, on 23 million cards (with a subsidy of EGP 50 a month for about 58.5 million citizens, for four people registered on the card, while anyone beyond that receives a subsidy of about EGP 25 per person per month, for 5.1 million people).<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Dairy products (milk, cheese and yoghurt) are also among the basics of the suhoor meal. Their prices rose by 30% last August as a result of the feed crisis (at the end of 2022, feed became extremely scarce in local markets, and the price of a tonne then exceeded EGP 33,000, compared with EGP 15,000 before the crisis), and they are expected to rise in the coming period because of low supply, according to statements<\/a> by Ahmed Etaby, a board member of the importers and exporters division at the Giza Chamber of Commerce and a dairy producer in the local market, who said the feed crisis drove small breeders, who make up 50% of the market, out of the dairy production system, resulting in fewer head of cattle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dairy prices in the market now range between EGP 18 and EGP 34 for a one-kilogram pack, while food companies announced price rises, bringing the price of a carton<\/a> of one-litre milk to EGP 565.2, a carton of 500 ml milk to EGP 315, and a carton of 200 ml milk to EGP 330. Prices of popular cheese ranged between EGP 23 and EGP 255 per pack (according to our field tour, a 1,200-gram pack of Istanbuli cheese reached about EGP 295, a 500-gram pack of feta cheese EGP 180, a kilogram of Domiati cheese about EGP 95, a 700-gram pack of cow ghee about EGP 260, and a one-and-a-half-kilo pack of oil about EGP 252).<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Gehad continues: “I stopped buying cheese a long time ago because of what I saw on social media about the dangers of vegetable-fat cheese, and replaced it with farm cheese, using recipes to make it creamy so my children would accept eating it. Two months ago I also bought a yoghurt-making machine instead of buying yoghurt in Ramadan, after the small pot reached six pounds”.<\/p>\n

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Meal Plans<\/h3>\n

Reda found what she was looking for in monthly meal plans to decide the quantities she will buy throughout Ramadan. She says: “As a working woman, I rely on weekly meal plans to help me organise my time and my expenses and stick to a specific shopping list, so I decided to draw up a list of meals for the whole month, while insisting that my husband cut down on invitations and limit them to just two throughout the month, which means cutting expenses as far as possible”.<\/p>\n

She adds: “In past years I used to buy Ramadan supplies a month or two before it at most, but after my struggle last year to provide the basic Ramadan supplies, I decided to start buying the supplies that have a long shelf life right after Eid al-Adha, and every month I now buy one or two extra offers of basic staple goods such as sugar, oil, rice, ghee and all kinds of legumes, leaving only animal protein and yamish to buy at the ‘Ahlan Ramadan’ exhibitions”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Minister of Supply and Internal Trade Ali El-Moselhy announced<\/a> the launch of the “Ahlan Ramadan 2024” exhibition in mid-February, which Egyptian families in all the country’s governorates await to buy their needs at reduced prices.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Reda comments: “Low prices are matched by low quality too, but this is what is available now; prices outside the exhibition are beyond my financial resources, especially meat, which this year rose to between EGP 373 and EGP 450, or poultry, whose prices also rose to about EGP 115 a kilo”.<\/p>\n

Reda says her family has five members; one chicken is not enough for a Ramadan iftar meal, and it will cost no less than EGP 150, so the “Ahlan Ramadan” exhibition is a lifesaver for her, along with precautions such as reducing each person’s share of meat, inventing meals based on plant rather than animal protein, or using recipes that include protein in smaller proportions.<\/p>\n

In 2019, the British newspaper “The Times<\/a>” published a shocking report on the kind of food the poor in Egypt eat at iftar tables during the holy month of Ramadan. In a report by its correspondent, it said tens of millions of people in Egypt live in extreme poverty and that many of them break their fast on food leftovers, pointing out that old potatoes, chicken bones and mouldy cheese are sold to the poor in the Kerdasa market.<\/p>\n

He pointed out that some traders collect food leftovers from restaurants, hotels and factories to be sold in this market. The correspondent recounts some of what he saw in the Kerdasa market, where a woman sits near piles of rubbish calling out to passers-by to persuade them to buy a tin of “Motella” at half price because it expired 6 months ago, while opposite her a young man sits selling pickles from a filthy barrel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to our field monitoring, the prices of some basic goods have also risen, averaging EGP 21 for a kilo of potatoes, EGP 30 for white onions compared with EGP 45 for red onions, and EGP 36 for green peppers, while the price of a pack of rice rose to EGP 38 for some popular varieties, pasta to EGP 34, a kilogram of yellow lentils was estimated at about EGP 90, and the price of a kilo of fava beans ranged between EGP 64 and EGP 124 in working-class areas.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
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Middle-Income Earners Are Struggling<\/h3>\n

Despite the high income of Safaa, a bank employee in her fifties, and her husband, who works as an accounts manager at an investment company, she finds herself in a tight spot this year as a result of the growing rise in the prices of yamish and Ramadan necessities.<\/p>\n

Safaa says: “I have three married children, the youngest of whom married two years ago, and I used to give each of them Ramadan staple supplies and some kahk and sweets in the seasons; but last year I could only manage it with great difficulty, and I will not be able to keep it up this year, as each one’s gift could cost more than ten thousand pounds”.<\/p>\n

In a similar context, for ten years Nevine and her friends have collected sums of money from their close circles as donations to prepare what is known as the “Ramadan bag” to distribute to the poor, estimated at a minimum this year at about EGP 250. Although she always tries to get a good price, she does not compromise on the quality of the products put in the bag, and always makes sure to include yamish, even in small quantities, according to what she told Zawia3.<\/p>\n

“The year before last I had to give up the yamish, because a large number of donors lost a large margin of their income because of the precautionary measures to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus, and last year I had to reduce the contents of the bags because of high prices and the inability of a number of donors to take part. With current prices I have two options: the first is to drop a number of the families we help, or not to include protein food,” Nevine says.<\/p>\n

She adds: “I thought the situation concerned only me, as I collect donations from a very narrow circle, my acquaintances, close friends and family, but when I contacted a friend of mine who founded a food charity to take on some of the cases I cannot cover this year, I was surprised when she told me she is struggling to cover the cases registered with her and has stopped accepting new cases because of the high cost of living and rising prices”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to official data<\/a>, the “Ramadan bag” is available at the “Ahlan Ramadan” exhibitions this year, consisting of six to ten kinds of goods, alongside coupons in denominations of “EGP 100, 150, 200, 250, 300 and 500”. The Ministry of Supply had announced the release of 55,000 tonnes of sugar through the “Ahlan Ramadan” exhibitions, 7,000 tonnes of cooking oil, 30,000 tonnes of rice, more than 10,000 tonnes of pasta and 500 tonnes of packaged fava beans, in addition to 65,000 tonnes of ration sugar, 43,000 tonnes of ration oil and 25,000 tonnes of pasta through the ration system’s outlets.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

In the same context, Ramadan El-Shahat, director of the media centre at the Ministry of Supply and Internal Trade, stressed in his conversation with Zawia3 that the ministry is working to secure all food commodities before Ramadan, as well as to increase the strategic reserve of basic goods, including the General Authority for Supply Commodities contracting at the end of last week to import 47,500 tonnes of sunflower oil to raise the reserve stock of oil before the Ramadan season, as the ministry implements the political leadership’s directives to raise the reserve stock of some important basic goods to cover more than six months.<\/p>\n

El-Shahat adds that the ministry runs daily campaigns to ensure that no major goods are hidden to raise their prices, in addition to pumping all basic goods into outlets, whether at the subsidised or the free price, to ensure there are no crises at the start of Ramadan, which sees heavy demand for goods, sometimes causing shortages or price rises. He explained that the ministry coordinated with the chambers of commerce and retail chains to hold the “Ahlan Ramadan” exhibitions, with one main exhibition in each governorate and three additional exhibitions, along with a number of different outlets.<\/p>\n

Egyptians are used to welcoming the month of Ramadan with decorations and joy, with laden tables spread in homes and streets, but this year Ramadan may become a nightmare for Egyptians who are only trying to preserve whatever they can of their customs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Soaring food prices and a weakened pound force Egyptian families to cut back on Ramadan staples, yamish and charity bags this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":8055,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[409],"tags":[19981,20166,20161,20162,20163,20092,20164,20159,20165,20160],"kateb":[863,710],"class_list":["post-18703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economics-en","tag-ahlan-ramadan-exhibitions","tag-dairy-prices-egypt","tag-egypt-inflation-2024","tag-food-prices-in-egypt","tag-gameya-savings-circles","tag-parallel-dollar-market","tag-ramadan-bag-charity","tag-ramadan-prices-egypt","tag-ration-card-subsidies","tag-yamish-prices","kateb-nadia-ibrahim","kateb-zawia3-com"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/\u062a\u0635\u0645\u064a\u0645-\u0628\u062f\u0648\u0646-\u0639\u0646\u0648\u0627\u0646.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18703"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18704,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18703\/revisions\/18704"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18703"},{"taxonomy":"kateb","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/kateb?post=18703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}