To cope with soaring fuel prices and reduce exhaust fumes in the environment, a Syrian businessman living in Cairo recently came up with an out-of-the-box idea; he built what he calls a ‘smart’ tuk-tuk. “Amid fuel price hikes, I thought about finding an alternative,” Ismail Abdel Hameed, the businessman behind the idea, told The Egyptian Gazette. Abdel Hamid, who came to Egypt six years ago following the outbreak of the Syrian uprising-cum-civil war, wants to modernize the country’s tuk-tuks with his red-colored, four-wheel, environmentally-friendly mini-car, while also reducing fuel consumption in face of the country’s recent fuel price hikes. Last June, Egypt hiked fuel prices by up 50 percent to help meet the terms of a $US 12 billion loan agreement signed with the International Monetary Fund. According to Minister of Petroleum Tarek El Mulla, prices of 92-octane petrol increased by more than 40 percent to LE 5 ($US 0.2767) from LE 3.5 per liter. The price of diesel and 80-octane, the most commonly used fuel types, rose by more than 50 percent to LE 3.65 per litre from LE 2.35. Abdel Hamid began working on his smart tuk-tuk…
