Egyptian Minister of Finance Ahmed Galal asserted that the Egyptian economy is in a dire need of tangible economic results as the public debt exceeded EGP 1.8 trillion.
Addressing the Euromoney conference which kicked off in Cairo on Monday, November 11th under the title of “Economic Priorities and the Role of Financial Markets”, Galal expounded his vision for the measures that should be taken to face the budget deficit and the mechanisms applied by the government in this respect.
In view of the decrease of the gross domestic product by 2.2 per cent and the state budget deficit ranging between EGP 200 billion to EGP 240 billion, unemployment rates have rise, the minister said, noting that the big losses which afflicted the tourism sector had a great impact on the government ability to provide new job opportunities as tourism was one of the biggest contributors to the Egyptian economy.
He went on to say that the government is targeting to decrease the state budget by 4 percent to reach up to 10 percent during the current fiscal year.
He asserted that the support of friendly countries has given Egypt much ability to achieve a financial balance.
Fears about inflation are logical, said Galal, noting that the best way to counter mobilization of the market is increasing the competitiveness of products via improving the production quality or the exportation as well as controlling prices.
In the same vein, Investment Minister Osama Saleh said that the issuance of a legislation for protecting “good intention” is under consideration, as the Cabinet tasked the investment and justice ministers with this mater in question to separate between the criminal and administrative mistakes of the officials.
For his part, Head of Delegation of the European Union (EU) to Egypt James Moran asserted that the government plays its role and tries to confront all problems and seriously solve them.
He went on to say that the EU would offer one billion euro for backing the Egyptian economy, referring to the necessity of solving problems of companies that were privatized, and then become state-owned companies anew by verdicts.
