File Photo: Mohamed Maait, Egypt's finance minister, at a Bloomberg Television interview in Cairo, Egypt. (Photo Courtesy of Bloomberg)
Egypt’s budget for the current 2020/2021 fiscal year, which began on 1 July, is elastic enough to deal positively with the economic impact of the coronavirs crisis, Finance Minister Mohamed Maait said in a statement on Tuesday.
Maait added that the government is ready to take all necessary actions to curtail the negative impacts of the crisis on the national economy.
The FY2020/2021 budget will be revised, in coordination with parliament, after the end of its first quarter in accordance with the developments in the crisis, according to Maait.
The minister said that the budget's allocations have been disbursed, and the ministry has notified the entities that provides health care services to stick to the prices that are set by the Egyptian Authority for Unified Purchasing and Medical Supply.
"They were also instructed to stock pharmaceuticals according to the latest international standards … to contribute to localising the pharmaceuticals industry in the Egyptian market in light of the presidential directives of fast-tracking the implementation of the national project of strategic stores for medical stockpiles that aims at fulfilling the current and future domestic consumption of pharmaceuticals and medical supplies," Maait said.
Maait stressed that the FY2020/2021 budget was drafted in accordance with the presidential directives to rationalise public spending amid the COVID-19 crisis, as well as to rearrange priorities in a way that helps maintain the gains of the country’s economic reform programme.
He added that every entity that benefits from the FY2020/2021 budget has to prepare a monthly cash flow plan that includes the expected revenues and expenditure as indicated by the average monthly flows over the past five years.
Egypt’s FY2020/2021 budget is the largest budget in the country’s history, at EGP 2.2 trillion, due to the increase in the public investment allocations over all sectors, in addition to the rise in the allocations for priority sectors including health care and education amid the COVID-19 crisis.
Short link: