Tourists in Egypt will be able pay for their train tickets in US dollars or euros starting January 2023, said Minister of Transport Kamel El-Wazir in remarks made to satellite TV Channel MBC Masr on Saturday.
The move aims to help secure hard currency liquidity, amid the rising value of the US dollar, and ease the burden on the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE).
Tourists will be able to easily pay the tickets prices via a bank card without the need to resort to transaction offices or to the black market to exchange their currencies, he added.
The step comes at a time when tourists are increasingly using trains to travel inside the country, following the inauguration of Spanish first-class air conditioned trains along the Cairo-Alexandria line, the minister said.
El-Wazir added that there is also a high demand on sleeping trains, whose tickets tourists had already been allowed to pay for in foreign currencies. The minister said that tourists and foreigners have booked more than 1,000 sleeping trains’ tickets using foreign currencies in the last few days.
Tickets for sleeping trains are sold for foreigners at $120 per passenger and $80 per two passengers.
The proceeds, El-Wazir noted, will be directed to the ministry’s account and used for financing the ministry’s purchase of contracted trains from abroad, especially with the increase in the value of train tractors from $3 million to $6 million due to the current global economic crisis.
Egypt is facing pressure on foreign currencies due to the economic shocks caused by the Russia-Ukraine war, which erupted in February.
Source: www.ahram.org.eg