The Shura Council’s National Security Committee has called for the reduction of the number of embassies to cut down the Foreign Ministry budget.
“We need to reduce the budget deficit by LE20 billion,” said the council’s majority leader Essam al-Erian. “All state bodies should reduce expenditure.”
For his part, MP Mohamed Abdel Latif said the Foreign Ministry’s surplus of LE224 million could help reduce the budget deficit, while MP Tharwat Nafea said the ministry is spending too much. “Our diplomatic missions are unnecessarily too many,” he said. ‘And the ministry is building too many offices in Cairo.”
Ambassador Yasser Reda, representative of the Foreign Ministry, explained that expenditure is affected by the rise of foreign currencies against the Egyptian pound.
He added that it was necessary to open new consulates in Libya, New York, Frankfurt and Sarajevo, as well as Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Shanghai.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
