The Egyptian government raised its forecast for the total budget deficit to 7.8 percent from its previous estimate at 6.3 percent, and also raised its forecast for the debt of the state's public budget agencies to reach 89 percent of GDP compared to 83 percent in the budget estimates, with expectations that it will decline to 80 percent by 2024/2025.
It indicated that the net issuance of government debt instruments of treasury bonds and bills amounted to about 353.7 billion pounds in the first half of the current fiscal year, compared to 745.8 billion pounds during the entire last fiscal year. The cost of debt servicing declined during the first half of the current fiscal year to reach 245.7 billion pounds, compared to 267.2 billion pounds during the same period last fiscal year, which means a decrease of 8 percent.
The government lowered its forecast for GDP to reach 6.4 trillion pounds, compared to 6.844 trillion pounds in previous estimates, and compared to 5.82 trillion pounds in the previous fiscal year.
During the first half of this year, Egypt's revenues witnessed a growth of 16 percent to reach 452.9 billion pounds, while expenses amounted to 681.2 billion pounds, a growth of 9.6 percent. The interest decreased by 8 percent to 245.7 billion pounds, compared to 267.2 billion pounds during the same period last fiscal year.
The government investments implemented during the period from July to December witnessed an increase of 59.4 percent to reach about 102 billion pounds, as the investments financed by the treasury rose to reach 73 billion pounds, an increase of 31 percent over the achieved one during the same period of last year.
Source (Al-Arabiya.net website, Edited)
