Egypt’s economy resilient amid pandemic thanks to economic reforms – minister

Egypt’s economic reforms have enhanced its ability to absorb shocks, the economy shows strong performance amid the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis, Minister of Finance Mohamed Maait said in a panel discussion organised by Bloomberg.

“I believe we were hit very strongly with the crisis; we saw more than $22 billion leave the country over just four to six weeks, but because the economy showed very strong performance, we achieved 3.6 percent GDP growth in the fiscal year 2019/2020… and this year we are close to 3 percent, next year we are expecting to grow by 5.5 percent,” he pointed out.

Egypt’s finance minister spoke on a panel at the Bloomberg Emerging + Frontier Forum, alongside the Polish Minister of Finance, Development Funds and Regional Policy of Poland, the Deputy Minister of Finance of Russia, the Minister of Finance of Indonesia, and the Global Head of Sovereign and Supranational Ratings at Fitch Ratings.

Maait noted that Egypt was one of the few economies to record growth during the crisis.

“Even with COVID-19, we were able to reduce debt to GDP. We saw our budget deficit decreasing from 8.2 percent to 7.9 percent…and we have seen that Egypt has achieved a 1.8% primary surplus. I believe that with economic reform, this economy has become stronger, become resilient, and able to absorb shock,” Maait pointed out.