Egypt’s military to expand into drugs

CAIRO // The Egyptian government has given the military permission to set up a pharmaceuticals company in a market hit by shortages and a dollar crunch that has driven up prices.

Prime minister Sherif Ismail issued the decision in a decree published on Sunday in the official gazette. The announcement did not provide details on the types of medicine that the company would be able to research or produce. Health minister Ahmed Emad said this month that prices for a quarter of the medicines in Egypt would be raised by 30 to 50 per cent.

Egypt’s foreign currency reserves have plummeted since the uprising in 2011 that toppled president Hosni Mubarak. The prices of pharmaceutical drugs have risen in the past year, with a shortage of dollars hitting the import of drugs manufactured abroad as well as raw materials used to make them in the country.

For decades, the military has played a key economic role in Egypt, producing everything from washing machines to pasta, as well as building roads.

But its involvement in the economy has been more visible since the inauguration of president Abdel Fattah El Sisi in 2014. The former army chief came to power after removing former president Mohammed Morsi from office.

The shortage has affected basic products including insulin and some medicine used to treat diabetes, a huge problem because 17 per cent of adult Egyptians have the disease. It also affected the supply of medicine used to treat heart disease, cancer and solutions used in dialysis.