Egypt’s retail and wholesale sector contributes EGP 850mn to GDP, supply ministry

Egypt’s retail and wholesale sector accounted for 14.5 percent or 850 million Egyptian pounds ($53.8 million) of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) during the financial year 2019/2020, senior government official said on Tuesday.

With the addition of the logistics and storage sector, the retail and wholesale sector would represent 19.5 percent  or 1.2 trillion Egyptian pounds of the GDP,  First Assistant of the Minister of Supply and Internal Trade, Ibrahim Ashmawy said during the second edition of Egypt’s Summit for Trade and Investment on Tuesday.

Egypt ranked third among the fastest growing economies in the last fiscal year despite the economic disruption caused by the pandemic, Ashmawy added, noting that the country posted a GDP growth of 3.6 percent, down from a target of 5.6 percent.

The country’s GDP reached  5.8 trillion pounds ($362 million) of which the retail sector made up about 500 billion pounds, recording the fastest growth rate in the Middle East.

On a side note, Ashmawy said that the total volume of e-commerce deals increased to $4.8 billion from $3.6 billion in 2018, according to the latest data released by the Federation of Egyptian Banks.