In an interview with Al-Arabiya, the Egyptian Minister of Finance, Mohamed Maait, confirmed that foreign investors’ confidence in the Egyptian economy raised their investments in debt instruments to $26 billion, according to the current balance. Describing the process of restoring the balance of foreign investments in debt instruments, as a very big shift from the situation that was the case last April, in which the balance of foreign investments in Egyptian debt instruments reached 3.9 billion dollars as a result of panic among investors with the closure at that time all over the world due to the circumstances of the Corona pandemic.
Minister Maait touched on the challenges of "the very high degree of uncertainty due to the unstable conditions with the Corona pandemic and the procedures for complete closure that are likely to be renewed in various countries of the world", expecting that the loss in revenues will reach amounts ranging from 150 to 200 billion pounds in the expected revenues for the fiscal year completely.
He stated: Due to these difficult circumstances, the Ministry of Finance has amended its targets for the total deficit from 6.3% to 7.9%, and the debt-to-GDP ratio from 83% to 89%, in addition to adjusting the target economic growth rate to be between 2.8% to less than 4%, according to the control on the circumstances of the pandemic, and the nature of the movement of economic activity inside and outside Egypt. Also, the primary target surplus has been adjusted from 130 billion pounds to a value ranging between 35 - 40 billion pounds for the entire fiscal year.
Maait furtherly explained that the Egyptian general budget had achieved an initial surplus in the first half of the current fiscal year by about 14 billion pounds, while the total budget deficit decreased to 3.6% of the GDP, compared to 4.1% during the same period of the previous year. Revealing that this surplus was achieved despite the increase in capital spending allocations, represented by the increase in the value of government investments for budget agencies, with an annual growth rate of 103%, the payment of all pension funds dues, and the provision of budgetary needs.
He also pointed to a decline in the bill for servicing the debt of the budget apparatus by 8% to 246 billion pounds, compared to about 267 billion pounds in the same period last year.
Source (Al-Arabiya.net website, Edited)
