Global coronavirus outbreak has brought tourism sector in Egypt to a virtual halt CAIRO: Egypt’s economic growth is expected to exceed 1 percent in the second of quarter of 2020, the country’s deputy minister of planning said on Monday. The country also lowered anticipated tourism revenues, one of its major sources of foreign currency, to 11 billion Egyptian pounds ($701 million) from 16 billion Egyptian pounds for the 2019-2020 financial year, which runs from July to June, due to the coronavirus crisis. Tourism had been recovering gradually from political turmoil after the uprising that ousted President Hosni Mubarak in early 2011, enjoying record-high revenue in 2019. The global coronavirus outbreak has since brought the sector in Egypt to a virtual halt. The Arab world’s most populous country has enforced a nightly curfew, banned large public gatherings and closed schools and universities in a bid to curb the spread of the virus. As of Sunday, Egypt’s health ministry had registered 2,065 cases of the new coronavirus including 159 deaths.