Railway ticket prices to rise by 30-45% after Ramadan?
Railway ticket prices to rise 30-45% after Ramadan? The Ismail Cabinet is reportedly days away from signing off on a decision to hike railway ticket prices by 30-45%, Al Mal reports. The hike, which will be implemented on VIP and first- and second-class tickets, would come into effect immediately after the end of Ramadan (around mid-June). Transport Minister Hisham Arafat had previously said that ticket prices would rise at the start of the new fiscal year in July. Ticket prices will continue to rise gradually over the years as railway services are upgraded and developed under the government’s plan to overhaul the sector, sources tell the newspaper.
Commuters, companies still adjusting to hike in Cairo Metro ticket prices: This comes just days after the Transport Ministry raised ticket prices for the Cairo Metro by more than 3x, which officials said was necessary to meet rising costs and continue working on metro system upgrades. Cairo saw small, impromptu protests over the weekend, leading authorities to deploy police inside and outside metro stations yesterday, Reuters reports. Some private companies are subsidizing Metro tickets for their employees salaries are adjusted to help them deal with rising transport costs, Al Masry Al Youm reports.
On a related note, Arafat has been discussing additional funding for railway and river transport projects with a World Bank delegation that is currently in town, according to Al Mal. The World Bank is already providing Egypt with more than USD 500 mn in separate loans for railway development projects.