Enhancing financial
inclusion
THE CENTRAL Bank of Egypt (CBE) on Sunday announced its financial inclusion strategy for 2022-25 with the aim of achieving economic growth.
The CBE said in a statement that the strategy was based on the results of a field survey on financial services carried out on a representative sample of individuals and medium, small, and micro enterprises. The strategy is based on what is being worked on in a sustainable way: financial education, protection of customer rights, diversification of banking and non-banking financial products according to customer needs, creating a work environment for medium, small, and micro enterprises and entrepreneurs, and digital financial services.
The strategy aims at cooperating with all state institutions to provide banking services to all segments of society, based upon fairness, quality, and appropriate cost. The strategy comes as a continuation of the efforts taken by the CBE through its initiatives and projects to enhance financial inclusion in Egypt over the previous years, which have increased from 33 per cent in 2017 to 56.2 per cent by the end of 2021.
Reckless driver jailed
A CAIRO criminal court on Sunday sentenced a 47-year-old to three years in prison for reckless driving on Suez Road while under the influence of drugs.
The ruling comes two weeks after a video showing the motorist swerving wildly on a highway went viral on social media. The court also fined him LE50,000 and revoked his driving licence. The ruling is not final and can be appealed.
The motorist, an employee at an Egyptian university, can be seen in the video with the driver’s door open and his leg hanging out as he swerves between lanes and cuts off other drivers. The driver’s car was rammed by a trailer truck in a failed attempt to stop him before he was stopped by other motorists down the road a few minutes later. The man was then pulled out of his car and beaten by a group of bystanders.
According to a statement by the prosecution late in September, the man was arrested with alcohol and narcotics in his possession, and tested positive for drugs, according to a medical report issued by a public hospital.
Monkeypox under
control
HEAD of the Preventive Medicine Sector at the Ministry of Health and Population Amr Qandil said that since the World Health Organisation (WHO) announced monkeypox as a global epidemic, 13 cases have been reported in Egypt, of which only two have been confirmed. Qandil said the first confirmed case was early in September, from an Egyptian who also has the nationality of a European country. The other case was discovered on 26 September in a man from an Arab country who had arrived in Egypt.
The total number of monkeypox cases worldwide is 86,000, including 28 deaths.
*A version of this article appears in print in the 13 October, 2022 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly.
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