Mumbai, Feb 2 (IANS) Owing to the prolonged curfew and mass public protests in Egypt, Asian Paints’ subsidiary SCIB Chemicals has temporarily shut operations of two of its plants in the country from Jan 29, 2011, the company Wednesday said.

‘The decision to restart the plants will be taken once the situation returns to normalcy,’ the company said in a regulatory filing.

This followed a decision earlier by a handful of other companies, including Coca-Cola Co, Nestle SA and Shell, to close their operations in Egypt, where anti-government protesters took to the streets in their thousands for the ninth day Wednesday.

The uprising in Egypt against Hosni Mubarak, who has ruled the country for nearly 30 years, has snowballed into a massive movement that is determined to oust the octogenarian. Mubarak has agreed not to run for the election again.

Several countries, including India, have already arranged for special flights to evacuate their nationals from Egypt.