Egyptian pharmacists and truck drivers end strikes

Cairo- Egyptian pharmacists and truck drivers went back to work on Wednesday, ending their separate strikes after both reached compromises with the government. Pharmacists in privately-owned drugstores suspended their two-day- old strike against a new tax law following talks between the Ministry of Finance and the Pharmacists' Syndicate, Mahmoud Abdel-Maqsoud, secretary-general of the syndicate, announced late on Tuesday. Abdel-Maqsoud told reporters the syndicate had agreed to suspend its strike after the government agreed 'it would not require the pharmacists to pay the new taxes retroactively for the period between 2005 and 2008.' Many privately-owned pharmacies were closed throughout Egypt on Monday and Tuesday to protest the provision. Abdel-Maqsoud added that he expected pharmacists and the government would soon reach a more lasting agreement on how pharmacists should be taxed. Egypt's Pharmacists' Syndicate and the Ministry of Finance struck a deal in 2005 to regulate the relationship between pharmacies and the tax authority, which is affiliated with the ministry. Before this agreement, which was only put into effect few weeks ago, pharmacies were treated as small businesses. Under the agreement, pharmacies are treated as big enterprises, which means they will use a new bookkeeping method that includes all merchandise sold in the drugstores for their tax returns. The tax authority had previously required that pharmacies pay tax arrears according to the new bookkeeping methods back to 2005, and that they present records or face trial. The pharmacists protested, saying many of them had not kept their records from three years ago. Finance Minister Youssef Boutros-Ghali told Egyptian government television on Tuesday that the disputes had been dealt with in a positive way. Separately, trailer-truck drivers halted their four-day-long strike Wednesday after a compromise was reached on Tuesday between trailer drivers and Hamdi al-Tahhan, head of Egypt's parliamentary committee on transport, Egyptian national television reported. Truck drivers and owners went on strike on Friday to protest provisions in an August traffic law that will ban articulated trailers after a two-year grace period. Under the terms of the agreement, the grace period will be extended, allowing the owners of trailers more time to modify their vehicles.