The magazine, titled A New Page, highlights fiscal and economic reforms, including tax and customs facilitation, efforts to boost exports, and the overall impact of these measures on the Egyptian economy.
Strengthening fiscal policies and aligning them with monetary policy is a key part of Egypt’s Extended Fund Facility (EFF) programme with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which provides a second wave of economic and structural reforms through an $8 billion loan.
In an op-ed in the magazine, Finance Minister Ahmed Kouchouk outlined four priorities: enhancing transparency between the Egyptian Tax Authority (ETA) and businesses; implementing fiscal policies to maintain sustainable economic activity while protecting financial indicators; reducing the debt-to-GDP ratio by lowering external debt, cutting debt service burdens, and extending debt maturity; and creating fiscal space for the private sector to fund social spending, health, and education.
“If the private sector had not played a larger and stronger role in economic activity, the desired results would not have been achieved in financial or economic performance,” Kouchouk said.
He also announced a second package of tax facilitation measures focused on digitization, broadening the tax base, reducing business tax burdens, increasing voluntary compliance, and creating a more competitive investment environment.
Private-sector activity grew 73 percent, while economic growth exceeded 5.3 percent in the first quarter of FY2025/2026. Tax revenues increased by 35 percent, reaching about EGP 961.6 billion during the first five months of the fiscal year, without imposing new taxes.
Kouchouk noted that the government reduced the debt-to-GDP ratio by 10 percent over the past two years, bringing it to 85.6 percent by June 2025, with a target to fall below 80 percent by June 2026.
The second facilitation package includes simplifying and speeding up tax procedures, offering faster value-added tax (VAT) refunds, enabling offset of tax credits and debits, and allowing refunds of credit balances to improve company cash flow.
For real estate, a mobile application was launched to handle transactions, notifications, and payments, while maintaining the 2.5 percent real estate transaction tax on individual sales and allowing deductions for foreign loan interest in strategic private-sector projects.
The package builds on the success of the first facilitation package, which supported small businesses, startups, and freelancers with annual revenues under EGP 15 million, exempting them from tax liabilities in exchange for registering with the ETA.
By November 2025, tax revenues had increased by EGP 78 billion, and new business activities worth EGP 1 trillion were recorded.
Both facilitation packages were recommended by the IMF. The IMF has reached a staff-level agreement with Egypt on the fifth and sixth reviews of the EFF programme and the first review under the Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF).
The reviews are pending approval by the IMF’s executive board, with a meeting expected this month that would release about $2.5 billion for Egypt once completed.
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