Egypt’s poverty rate has increased, reaching 26.3 per cent for the year 2012/13 compared with 25.2 percent in 2010/11, the state-run statistics agency CAPMAS reported on Wednesday.

A CAPMAS report stated that the domestic poverty line stands at an annual LE3,920 ($569) per person

However, the country’s extreme poverty rate shed 0.4 percent from 2010/11 to record 4.4 percent in 2012/13. The extreme poverty line stands at an annual LE3,570 ($518) per person.

Poverty remains predominant in rural areas compared to urban areas. The highest rates in the country are in two southern Egyptian governorates, Assiut and Qena, at 60 and 58 percent respectively.

The average expenditure of Egyptian households stand at some LE26,161 ($3,798).

Expenditures of around 5.6 percent of the Egyptian families –currently 19 million nationwide – are less than LE10,000 ($1,452) per year, while 6.2 percent of total families spend more than LE50,000 ($7,259) annually.