From tea to cars, Egypt and Tunisia struggle to pay for imports

The signs that limit customers to one bag of flour or two litres of milk are sometimes unnecessary, because there is nothing to buy. Supermarket shelves in Tunisia have been stripped bare in recent weeks. Cooking oil, coffee, sugar and butter are all hard to find, especially outside the capital. Some supermarkets even ration bottled water. Shoppers at malls in Cairo had a similar experience all summer: stocks of consumer goods, from clothing to furniture, are running low.