Egypt’s economy may grow 5% on high public investments

Reuters

Egypt’s economy is expected to achieve overall growth of around five percent by the end of the current fiscal year, Ahram Online reported, citing minister of planning and economic development Hala El-Said.

The anticipated growth is attributed to the resilience shown by the Egyptian economy due to the expansion in public investments, she said in a meeting with President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi.

The minister said that the Egyptian economy continued to achieve a 4.4 percent growth during Q1 2022 of the current fiscal year despite challenges posed by the Ukraine crisis, the pandemic, and the effects of climate change.

El-Said expected global trade to decline to 2.5 percent in 2023 from 4.3 percent this year.

During the meeting, El-Sisi ordered to continue studies of the global economic situation and its impact on the Egyptian economy.

The president stressed that these studies should place a strong emphasis on global inflation rates and the rise in food and energy prices amid global shortages and turbulence in international supply chains.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF), in its World Economic Outlook report in October, expected Egypt’s real GDP to grow by 4.4 percent in 2023, down from its July forecast of 4.8 percent.

The fund anticipated global growth to decline to 2.7 percent next year from six percent in 2021 amid the Russia-Ukraine war and the coronavirus pandemic.

So far, the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) has hiked the key interest rates by five percent in 2022 to control the inflationary pressure caused by high global inflation and the repercussions of the war in Ukraine.

In addition, Egypt reached a new $3 billion loan agreement with the IMF to help the country meet its external obligations, said CBE governor Hassan Abdalla.