0:00 What are the backstage details of the failure of the agreement with the International Monetary Fund and the postponement of the fifth review and its integration into the sixth, despite the fact that the Fund had praised the performance of the Egyptian economy after the fourth review some time ago? What changed? What happened? You have been saying for six months that your currency rate is 49 pounds to the dollar. That is good for about six months, and you agreed with them that you will make a flexible exchange rate. It cannot remain flexible and remain for six months between 49 and 50. The Fund sees that its words have no action. In reality, I mean, I
0:49 wish the Fund’s words were correct, by the way, because they fix the dollar rate by adding dollars to the market when there is a shortage of dollars. When there is an increase, it withdraws them from the market. In a process, it enters with the dollars in the Central Bank and puts them in the market, as the lady said once, “You are working with a hole, not a hole.” She said a holed plate, something like that. I mean, holed. You put your money in something holed that sits underground. Why? Because you You are dealing primarily in Egypt now with hot money, this will be sucked in,
1:34 meaning that you are still managing the dollar, you will reach a time, but this is the point, but this is that people said, the experts said many other points that we did in the graph, you only addressed one point, which is that until now you are not leaving the dollar price fluctuating, but you are interfering in it, but they said there are many other reasons, no, I know, and if you want to talk about them, but what concerns me is the reason that I am starting with this topic, I do not want this topic to be an area for discussion or blackmail, why? Because directly if you let the pound fall as requested, it will be
2:24 called something called a free-for-all, as if you were caught in a storm, and the dollar, the pound, goes anywhere, God knows where it will go, a free-for-all. Well, what is it, what is it, Doctor, let me be with you, let me be in the place of the Egyptian government, if I let the dollar rise or fluctuate, it could reach 70 or 80 pounds. Well, in this case, all the prices of goods, food products, and psychological Social and environmental, everything will become more expensive, the people will rise up against me. This was said once, and they said to you, “ If it reaches 50, we won’t sit around talking like this.” This is the local talk that we know. Yes, the price of the dollar is actually more than 50. They
3:10 know that it is more than 50. How much is it, Doctor? In your opinion, in my estimation, it is not less than 80 now. Why is the dollar now, in your opinion, not less than 80 pounds? Yes, yes, why am I saying this? First, why does the future price reach this level? Second, when you take out loans, you insure them and pay installments and debt installments, and insurance installments on Egyptian debts are now high. Third, and it is almost the most important thing, the dollar itself in the last five years lost 25% this year from the beginning of January until now, and we are in July
3:55 10%. That is, what was a dollar in the first year is now 90 piasters, but if you have the dollar, it will decrease, and you are sitting in advance and trying as much as possible to remain stable. You are throwing your money away, the dollar will decrease if your words are reasonable. Look at what could happen. 10%. You could increase the value of the pound by 10% as protection because the dollar has dropped at its peak. I am talking about this year, it dropped by 10% at the beginning of this season. The Egyptian government agreed to this talk, but you know in Egypt, they
4:40 want to end it by any means. Egypt is unfortunately in a slowdown. I mean, okay, they are treating it like a dead body. Anyone who comes and hits it, okay, doctor, after postponing the fifth review and merging it with the sixth, and they didn’t even say when or anything, they said in December, in December. Okay, was Egypt supposed to receive this 4 billion European Union loan? They were supposed to say in March, and then they said this July. Is it possible that the 4 billion European Union loan that was supposed to be disbursed this month will be affected by the decision of the International Monetary Fund, the loan with the International Monetary Fund and other international organizations?
5:26 First and foremost, it is a political process. First and foremost, it is a political process, even if you go back to Egypt’s history with the International Monetary Fund. The IMF, which was in the fifties, I think it was six years ago. It agreed to build the dam. It actually said, “I will build the High Dam.” The world will finance the construction of the dam. Suddenly, the Americans woke up. Someone called Al-Anon Dales said, “No, we will not finance the High Dam unless you make a group of agreements and things like that.” So Abdel Nasser took some and went to Russia and built the dam. Egypt has had a bad relationship with the IMF for a long time. In the late eighties and early nineties, Egypt and the Fund, although the relationship was not direct,
6:12 Egypt had taken a promise from America to write off some of the debts, which meant that the solution to this issue was something called a country club. The club’s fund brings a group of creditors, so the size is on the table. And guys, we were going to write off 28 billion. Guys, we want to write off 28 million from the Egyptian debt, oh Saudi Arabia. Are you ready to give up how much, America? Are you ready to give up how much, France? How much, Japan? How much? Japan said no, not a penny. So they sat for three years looking for conditions of this kind. I personally attended meetings in which the Fund was demanding that EgyptAir be privatized. There was an
6:58 airline officer who said, “It is not possible to stop at a subject. There was a matter left, but we took it. We took it during the days of Atef Ebeid. The loan. You did not take the loan. You took it. It took a fall for some. Today he did not give you money. You had 53. He lowered them. He lowered them around 29. Because Mubarak... Mubarak was interested in the issue of debt at this level. I wish Sisi would do the same thing because the issue is not easy. It is not easy in the sense that it has an impact. It has a major impact on the people and on the economic system. So Mubarak sat down when he had the opportunity.
7:47 America came to him out of the blue and said to him, “We intend to feed Iraq. We want two things from you. The first thing is to invite the Arab League to meet in Egypt. Two things that make them...” They participate with us while we fight Iraq, the man, and we will give you in return, we will remove from you about 29, not exactly half, but about 29 billion dollars. The man agreed and actually did work. The Arab League meeting and they went and waged war and sent messages to Saddam Hussein, message after message. And then in the end, they
8:35 promised and fulfilled the promise they made. The Transport Fund was the one that was being implemented. The Soul Fund did not have any debts, it was normal. Most of them were debts, either American or Arab from the Gulf. So this fund is a political tool. Yes.
