The Arab Monetary Fund raised its forecast for the growth of the Egyptian economy for the current calendar year 2018 to 5%.
It also expects in its annual report on the Arab Economic Outlook that the Egyptian economy will continue to grow to reach 5.5% next calendar year.
The report also expected that the inflation to drop to 13.5% next year, down from 18% this year.
Meanwhile, in terms of the Arab countries level, the report expected that the Arab inflation to reach 11.4% in 2018, and is likely to decline in 2019 recoding 8.3%.
The Arab Monetary Fund raised its expectations for the growth of the Egyptian economy, due to the reform programme adopted by Egypt and due to Egypt’s ability to achieve an initial surplus in the fiscal year (FY) 2017/2018 by about 0.2% without calculating the debt interests.
Notably, Egypt is currently implementing an economic reform programme in cooperation with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), under which Egypt will be granted a $12bn loan over a three-year period that will be ended next year, meanwhile the reform programme includes the pound flotation, and the gradual reduction of subsides.
Earlier in January, the IMF expected Egypt’s economic growth rate to rise to 4.8% in FY 2017/2018, reaching 6% in the medium term.
Then in April, the IMF raised its forecast for Egypt’s economic growth to 5.2% for FY 2017/2018.
Concerning the challenges that still face the Egyptian economy at the current stage, the Arab Monetary Fund explained that the high rates of unemployment and poverty are among the most important challenges facing the Egyptian economy at the current stage.
The report elaborated that Egypt has been able by virtue of the good economic performance, to reduce the unemployment rate from 13.2% in 2016 to 11.9% last year.
“In Egypt there is a need to continue the efforts in order to provide more employment opportunities, which will reduce unemployment rates, especially among youth,” the report asserted.
