Minister of Finance Mohamed Maait said that the economic and social reforms implemented by the government helped Egypt advance in the ranks of international economic indicators, where the growth rate increased, and the ratio of public budget agency debt to the gross domestic product decreased, as well as the public budget deficit.
He added that Egypt came in second place at the level of emerging markets in the first budget index after converting the ratio of deficit to an initial surplus of 2% of the GDP, and first in the ranking of emerging countries in the debt reduction index after its success in reducing the debt of the public budget agencies as a percentage of GDP by about 18% in only two years. Egypt’s ratio has now reached 90%, and is expected to drop again to 83% in June 2020.
Egypt also achieved the highest growth rate in the Arab region at 5.6%, during fiscal year (FY) 2018/2019.
The Minister attributed this significant improvement in the performance of the national economy to qualitative steps in the performance of the Egyptian public budget, which achieved revenues during the first half of the current fiscal year, amounting to EGP 390.1bn, a growth rate of 5% over the previous fiscal year. He pointed out that this rise comes despite the decline in the value of grants received by Egypt from abroad, which recorded only EGP 800m in the first half of the current fiscal year, compared to EGP 2.7bn in FY 2015/2016.
Maait indicated that tax revenues reached EGP 304bn in the first half of the current fiscal year, and the non-tax revenues increased to record EGP 85.6bn, pointing out that Egypt succeeded in achieving an initial budget surplus during the first half of the current fiscal year of EGP 30.5bn against an initial deficit of EGP 53.8bn in the same period in 2015/2016. Egypt also succeeded in reducing the total deficit rate for the public budget from 6.2% in the first half of FY 2015/2016 to 3.8 % of GDP during the first half of the current fiscal year.
He said that the government’s economic reforms also contributed to the improvement in the net relationship between the public treasury and the oil sector, which achieved a surplus in favour of the treasury during the first quarter of the current fiscal year by EGP 3bn for the first time in years, pointing out that this surplus will rise with settlements with the petroleum sector during the remainder of the fiscal year.
