Egypt’s budget deficit decreases 2% in Q1-FY2017/18

Egypt’s budget deficit decreased by two percent of GDP during the first quarter of financial year 2017/2018, the county’s Finance Ministry’s monthly bulletin stated on Wednesday.

The deficit during the last three months registered 85.3 billion Egyptian pounds; it amounted to 76.8 billion pounds during the corresponding period of 2016.

The state deficit budget was announced to have decreased by 1.7 percent of GDP during the period from July to August of financial year 2017/2018.

Earlier, Finance Minister Amr El-Garhy stated that the government aims to reduce the budget deficit by between 1 and 1.5 percent with a long-term decrease of between four and five percent by 2022.

Egypt is implementing sweeping reforms that include cutting subsidies and raising taxes that the government hopes will lure back foreign investors.

In November 2016, Egypt signed a $12 billion three-year International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan agreement. The government has so far received an initial $4 billion tranche of its IMF loan. The Finance Minister said the country will receive the $2 billion second disbursement in December. Source: Egypt today