The budget deficit doubled in the first quarter of the current fiscal year 2023/2024 to 3.9 percent of GDP from 2.1 percent in the same quarter of the last fiscal year 2022/2023.
According to the Ministry of Finance's report, the debt service bill amounted to about 477.5 billion pounds (about 14.5 billion dollars) during the first quarter from July 2023 to September of the same year. The Finance Ministry expects the budget deficit for the current fiscal year to widen to 7 percent of GDP from 6 percent in the previous fiscal year.
The International Monetary Fund expects a deficit to rise to 10.7 percent this year, while S&P expects the deficit to widen to just 6.8 percent. The government cut its forecast for economic growth for the current fiscal year by 0.7 percentage points to 3.5 percent from 4.2 percent in a previous forecast.
Source (Al-Araby Al-Jadeed Newspaper, Edited)
