Egypt’s current FY2020/2021 budget aims to reduce the poverty rate to 30 percent, down from 32.5 percent in FY2017/2018, and to reduce the extreme poverty rate to 5 percent, Minister of Planning and Economic Development Hala El-Said announced in a statement on Monday.
El-Said said that the investment plan included in the FY2020/2021 budget allocates EGP 8 billion to fight poverty in 357 villages, the Hayah Karima initiative, the initiative to protect the middle class, and the initiative to energise Egypt’s production process.
The FY2020/2021 budget also aims to decrease the illiteracy rate to 22 percent in 2020/2021, down from 25.8 percent in FY2017/2018, said El-Said.
Regarding social protection for individuals, El-Said expounded that the FY2020/2021 budget targets offering 70,000 job opportunities for women and young people, especially in micro and small-sized projects.
The budget also targets covering 11.8 million people with cash subsidies, increasing the number of households benefiting from the subsidies to 2.95 million, according to El-Said.
The FY2020/2021 budget, which amounts to EGP 2.2 trillion (about $138 billion), is the largest in the country’s history and includes a significant increase in public investments and allocations for state bodies to contain the impacts of COVID-19 on the national economy.
Short link: