Breakfast Briefing in honour of HE Dr. Mohamed Maait

Minister Maait affirmed the Government’s commitment to controlling public finances and achieving a sustainable economic growth that is led by the private sector. By adopting a flexible strategy that is capable of containing internal and external shocks, Egypt is set on adopting balanced policies that contribute to dealing positively with the negative repercussions imposed by the global crises witnessed across all economies through severe inflationary pressures that raised the cost of financing and increased the difficulty of accessing international financial markets. Accordingly, the Minister elaborated in his statement that the Government has taken effective, concrete steps in implementing a structural reform program to ensure fair investment opportunities and lure more foreign and domestic investments into the economy.

In his meeting with the members of the Egyptian-British Chamber of Commerce, the Minister added that Egypt is mobilizing all the means to stimulate investment and enhance domestic production and export, reflected across its sturdy infrastructure which is capable of accommodating more economic activities and creating a business climate that is more attractive to capital. The latest legislative amendments that cancelled any preferential treatment granted to state-owned companies and entities, coupled with the launching of the “State Ownership Policy Document” which aimed to increase the private sector’s contribution to the GDP, and the announced IPO program, which includes offering 32 state-owned companies on the Egyptian Stock Exchange until the first quarter of 2024 and aims to achieve USD 2 billion before the end of the current fiscal year, all show a serious effort by the Government to offer a conducive investment climate for the private sector. In addition to the aforementioned efforts, the recently launched ‘Golden License’ aims to shorten the procedures for setting up investment projects, in a way that creates a more favorable investment environment for both production and export.

Minister Maait also highlighted that the macroeconomic indicators during the past 11 months of the current fiscal year have witnessed an improvement, with the Government achieving the following:

• a primary surplus of about 1.2% of GDP

• a tax revenue growth of 29.4% behind the undertaken digitization developments that the tax system witnessed during the past years

• a current account surplus during the first half of the current fiscal year by about USD 1.8 billion

• an oil trade balance surplus of about USD 1.9 billion an improvement in the non-oil trade balance by about USD 6.2 billion

• an improvement in tourism revenues by 26%

• a net foreign direct investment of USD 5.7 billion, with a growth rate of 75%

• an increase in the Suez Canal revenues to record USD 4 billion.

Egypt is also working on maximizing its efforts to diversify debt instruments and reduce their cost by accessing innovative financial instruments that contribute to putting the debt rate on a downward path and ensures that it reaches less than 80% of the GDP by June 2027. Under the framework of strengthening financing diversification, Minister Maait highlighted that the Government aims to extend the debt life to 3.5 years by the end of June 2023 and 5 years by June 2027, adding that FY 2023/24 general budget aims to achieve a 4.1% growth and a 2.5% primary surplus (up from the 1.5% set to be achieved by the end of FY 2022/23).

Friday June 16, 2023

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