View of the Dokki district in Giza, near the Egyptian capital, on Oct. 3, 2013. (Credit: Faris Knight/Wikicommons)
The days of the Soliman Gohar Street souk may be numbered, shopkeepers say, after a controversial new law ending decades of frozen rents was ratified in early August.“In five years, nobody here will be able to pay the new rents or buy their shop, so people will leave,” said Mohammed Salhi, a gray-haired fishmonger who rarely leaves the white plastic chair beside his stall. He pays just 100 Egyptian pounds a month — about $2 — for the small, timeworn space his father opened in the 1970s under an indefinite lease.The reform, part of a broader move to abolish the Nasser-era system of frozen rents, foresees a fivefold increase in rents by early November, followed by a 15 percent annual rise over a five-year transition before older contracts are terminated. Also in Cairo Alaa Abd al-Fattah, symbol of Sisi’s arbitrary rule Salhi and...
The days of the Soliman Gohar Street souk may be numbered, shopkeepers say, after a controversial new law ending decades of frozen rents was ratified in early August.“In five years, nobody here will be able to pay the new rents or buy their shop, so people will leave,” said Mohammed Salhi, a gray-haired fishmonger who rarely leaves the white plastic chair beside his stall. He pays just 100 Egyptian pounds a month — about $2 — for the small, timeworn space his father opened in the 1970s under an indefinite lease.The reform, part of a broader move to abolish the Nasser-era system of frozen rents, foresees a fivefold increase in rents by early November, followed by a 15 percent annual rise over a five-year transition before older contracts are terminated. Also in Cairo Alaa Abd al-Fattah, symbol of Sisi’s arbitrary rule ...
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