As he watched Egypt’s revolt turn into a financial crisis that devoured 50 percent of the nation’s foreign-currency holdings last year, Ahmed El-Rifai started charging some clients in U.S. dollars.
The 32-year-old owner of Egyweb, a Web-development company in Cairo, says he may also buy real estate with his Egyptian pound savings, concerned that the loss of reserves will lead to a devaluation. That has already sent the pound down 3.8 percent since the start of last year. Iraq’s central bank says its dollars are fuelling Syria’s black market. In Tripoli, Libya, dozens are queuing every morning at banks to buy the U.S. currency.
A year after popular protests from Tunisia to Egypt to Libya toppled rulers, transitions marked by violence have failed to lift economic hardship. Almost two thirds of Egyptians see the economy as the country’s biggest challenge, according to a survey by the New York-based International Peace Institute in September. Promised Western aid has yet to arrive, savings in foreign currencies have grown and government borrowing costs have surged.
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