Caisse de la Dette Publique

The Caisse de la Dette Publique ("Public Debt Commission", Arabic: صندوق الدين في مصر, romanized: ṣundūq ad-dayn fī-Miṣr) was an international commission established by a decree issued by Khedive Isma'il of Egypt on 2 May 1876 to supervise the payment by the Egyptian government of the loans to the European governments following several modernisation projects including the construction of the Suez Canal. The Khedive had defaulted on paying back Egypt's foreign debts, which were mostly owned to the British and the French. These governments in turn joined to impose a system of supervision over Egypt's debts. The goal of the commission was to investigate everything regarding Egypt's foreign debts; what Egypt could afford to pay, in what way the taxes were collected, how high the amount of floating debt was, and how that debt had been incurred.