The article kind of touches on this, but doesn't expose how bad it was: Egypt's economy was in very dire state before this. The official exchange rate was aroun

The article kind of touches on this, but doesn't expose how bad it was: Egypt's economy was in very dire state before this. The official exchange rate was around 30 EGP to the dollar, but in the parallel market, it was 70. And it was very hard to get any foreign currency at all, meaning anything imported (or anything requiring imports in its supply chain) wasn't available. Think appliances, building materials, cars, etc. All of this meant massive inflation, broken supply chains, lots of uncertainty, etc. This gives Egypt a few years of breathing room. Ultimately, most economists agree that the country is overspending (new capital, lots of road infrastructure, etc), has the military playing too big a role in economy/politics, has unsustainable subsidies, etc, and unless the root causes are solved, this just kicks the can down the road a few years.