(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-04-07 09:28

CAIRO - The Egyptian authorities thwarted plans for a general strike to protest against price hikes which hit the populous Arab country hard in recent months.

People were unaffected by the general strike calls and conditions across the country were calm on Sunday, the official MENA news agency reported.

The repeated calls for the strike on Sunday "went unheeded by the public," said the report.

The authorities beefed up police deployment in downtown Cairo and some crossroads said to be the convening places for the strike, witnesses said.

However, there were less people and cars in the streets in the morning than usual, partly due to bad weather caused by sandstorms on Sunday, they said.

Meanwhile, Egyptian security forces on Sunday also prevented a planned strike at Egypt's largest textile factory by about 20,000 textile workers in Mahalla el-Kubra, some 100 km north of Cairo, witnesses said.

On Saturday, the Egyptian Interior Ministry issued a statement, vowing to take "immediate and firm measures" against those disturbing public orders. It ordered all public institutions, schools and factories owned by the state to open as usual on Sunday.  

Calls for strikes on Sunday appeared recently on the Internet or mobile phone text messages in Egypt to protest against skyrocketing prices.

In a bid to stabilize local market, the Egyptian government has taken a series of measures to curb the price hikes.

On Wednesday evening, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak issued a decree to exempt import customs on basic commodities to increase supply in the local market to stabilize prices.

Egypt also announced in late March a ban on rice and cement exports for six months until October as part of efforts to check local price hikes.