Egypt’s FY2020/2021 attained an EGP 25 billion initial surplus during the first nine months of the current FY2020/21 despite the negative implications of the COVID-19 crisis on economic activity, Minister of Finance Mohamed Maait announced on Tuesday.
Egypt’s annual revenues’ growth rose by 14.6 percent in the current FY2020/21 (from July through March), while expenses increased by 11.2 percent during the same period as a result of the increase in governmental investment, mega projects, subsidies, social protection allocations as well as the rise in spending on health and education sectors, according to Maait.
Maait then unveiled that total tax revenues went up by 13.5 percent, by the end of the third quarter of FY2020/21, including the non-sovereign tax revenues that increased with EGP 43.1 billion (grew by 10.4 percent).
The sovereign tax revenues also jumped up EGP 20.6 billion (rose by 33 percent), as according to the minister.
For social protection programmes, Maait said that EGP 338.5 billion were spent in the same period with a growth rate of 17.1 percent; EGP 45.7 billion on supply commodities subsidies with a growth rate of 23.8 percent and EGP 12.9 billion were spent on supporting Takafol and Karama as well as social insurance pensions with a growth rate of 7.3 percent.
He added that allocations directed to finance the governmental investments also increased by 45 percent to reach EGP 163.7 billion, including the investments that are finance through the public treasury that rose by 29 percent to post EGP 115 billion, compared to the same period of FY2019/20.
Maait pointed out to government efforts to extend the the public debt period, through which it reached three and a half years by the third quarter of FY2020/21, up from 1.3 years in 2013 and 1.8 years in 2014, adding that it is expected to reach between 3.6 and 3.8 years by end of the fiscal year.
The minister stressed that such figures reflect an unprecedent improvement in Egypt’s budget fiscal performance during the three quarters of FY2020/21, owing to the fiscal and economic policies the government adopts.
In its updated report on the world economic outlook - released on Tuesday - the International Monetary Fund (IMF) expected its real GDP growth to deaccelerate to 2.5 percent in 2021, down from 3.6 percent in 2020, before rebounding by around the double to reach 5.7 percent in 2022.
Egypt’s inflation rate is projected to decline down to 4.8 percent in 2021, down from 5.7 percent in 2020, before soaring to 7.2 percent in 2022, according to the report.
Moreover, the country’s current account balance is expected to continue seeing a negative performance estimated at -4 percent in 2021 and 2022, compared to the -3.1 percent in 2020.
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