Egypt Aims to Reduce its Public Debt to 80 percent

  • Cairo, Egypt
  • 8 March 2019
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The Egyptian Finance Minister Mohamed Maait announced the start of a new debt management plan aimed at reducing the Egyptian public debt to 80 percent of GDP by 2022, and reducing the general budget deficit to about 7 percent of GDP in the fiscal year 2019-2020.

Mr. Maait explained during a meeting with the European Bank’s senior vice president for reconstruction and development Jürgen Regentink that, "the new plan also benefits from the government's success in raising the economic growth rate to 5.5 percent in the fourth quarter of the last fiscal year and we aim to increase it for the current financial year to 5.8 percent along with achieving the economic stability that ensures the continued progress."

The Egyptian Ministry of Finance managed earlier to reduce the public debt ratio from 108 to 97 percent last fiscal year, and achieved an initial budget surplus for the first time in 15 years by 0.2 percent of GDP, and plans to raise it to 2 per cent during the current general budget.

Source (Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper, Edited)