Brooks made her comments as an answer to Ahram Online’s question on the IMF’s expectations for Egypt and the MENA region as well as the key drivers behind them.

The IMF held a presser on Tuesday to launch its updated report on the world economic outlook.

Brooks said that Egypt managed to do well amid the pandemic compared to oil-importer countries, adding that the impact of COVID-19 on the Egyptian economy has been well managed so far.

She also pointed out that there is stronger data coming in terms of Egypt’s economic performance that drove the revising up of its real GDP growth without giving further details.

However, Brooks said that the Omicron variant and its impact on the economy may bring uncertainty, especially for Egypt’s tourism sector.

For MENA, Brooks noted that the IMF also upgraded the region’s real GDP growth projections as well by 0.4 percent in 2022, mainly driven by the growth in oil-exporter countries that is built on higher oil prices.

It is worth noting that the World Bank also rose its projection for Egypt’s real GDP growth in 2022, according to its global economic prospects report that was issued in January.

Accordingly, the World Bank upgraded its forecasts for Egypt’s real GDP growth to 5.5 percent in FY2021/22 while maintaining the country’s outlook for FY2022/23 at the same rate of 5.5 percent.