Egypt has created a 5 billion Egyptian pound ($854 million) fund to compensate people for property damaged during the political protests that have rocked the country, Finance Minister Samir Radwan said on Friday. Much of Egypt's economy has ground to a halt since the violent unrest broke out on January 25, and banks and the stock exchange have been closed for a week.
"We have made the calculations and found we could bear the expenses without damaging the position of the budget," Radwan told Reuters by telephone without elaborating. Tax collectors throughout the country will immediately begin accepting compensation requests from owners of cars, shops and other businesses, Egypt's official news agency quoted him as saying.
The size of the fund is equivalent to about 5 percent of the government's budget deficit in the fiscal year to June 2010, which was 98 billion Egyptian pounds or 8.1 percent of gross domestic product. Revenues during that year were 269 billion pounds, down from 282.5 billion in 2008/09. Officials have said they aim to keep the deficit at 7.9 percent of GDP this fiscal year, and then cut it to between 3.0 and 3.5 percent in 2014/15.
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