Salem added that the committee will hold nine meetings this week, the first two of which will be on Monday, and another two on Tuesday.

Moreover, the MP said that Minister of Planning and Economic Development Hala El-Said is expected to address members of the committee during its morning meeting on Tuesday on the new 2022/23’s social and economic development plan and answer questions of MPs in this respect.

He added that Tuesday’s afternoon meeting will be devoted to discussing the FY2022/23 budget of the Ministry of Education.

Additionally, the MP said that Minister of Finance Mohamed Maait was invited to attend the Budget Committee’s meeting on Wednesday morning.

“Minister Maait will answer questions on the new FY2022/23 budget in general, the budgets of the state’s economic institutions in detail, and the National Organisation for Military Production,” said Salem.

He also indicated that two meetings will be held on Thursday, the first of which will be dedicated to reviewing the budget of the Ministry of Supply and Internal Trade and its affiliated institutions.

The two meetings will also focus on the 2022/23 budget’s allocations to food and basic commodity subsidies. Minister of Supply and Internal Trade Ali El-Moselhi is expected to attend this meeting.

The discussion comes after the finance and planning ministers delivered two statements on the new FY2022/23 budget and development plan on 9 May.

Maait said the dramatic spike in world food and energy prices compelled the government to restructure the 2022/23 budget to spend more on subsidies and social protection programmes to cushion their negative effect on the most vulnerable members of society.

Preliminary figures show that allocations to subsidy and social protection programmes will be increased by 11 percent, reaching EGP 356 billion in the new 2022/23 budget.

According to the draft 2022/23 budget report, “fuel subsidies will be increased from EGP 18.4 billion to EGP 28.9 billion, while food subsidies — which cover bread and basic food commodities for 71 million citizens holding ration cards — will climb from EGP 87.2 billion to EGP 90 billion.”

Maait also said the budgetary allocations for public sector salaries will increase by EGP 43 billion to reach EGP 400 billion, revealing “the increase was ordered by President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi to improve the financial position of 4.5 million state employees.”

Additionally, Planning Minister El-Said said that while Egypt had been on target to achieve a growth rate of 6.4 percent in 2021/22 and nine percent during the first half of the current fiscal year, however, the Russian-Ukrainian war led the growth rate to be downgraded to six percent by the end of the current fiscal year and to 5.7 percent in FY 2022/23.

“We do, however, expect it to begin climbing again to reach 6.2 percent and 6.5 percent in the following two years,” she added.

“At the same time, we expect that investments will exceed EGP one trillion for a second year, reaching EGP 1.45 trillion in the new FY — a growth rate of 17 percent — with EGP 1.1 trillion going to public investments and EGP 350 billion to private investments.”

In terms of public investments, the minister said priority will be given to completing national projects.

She added that higher economic growth rate is not the only objective of the new socio-economic development plan, as It also aims to reduce the unemployment rate to 7.05 percent, which will “be achieved by implementing infrastructural reforms and modernising technical education.”