Egypt’s budget deficit reached 9.3 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) in the first eleven months of the current fiscal year, compared to 11.7 percent recorded in the same period in FY2012/2013, according the finance ministry’s monthly report for June, reported to Al-Alhram Online
The deficit totalled some LE189 billion ($26.4 billion) for the period of July 2013 to May 2014, compared to around LE205 billion ($28.6 billion) in the same months of the preceding fiscal year.
Egypt’s minister of finance, Hany Kadry Demian, said in March the state’s budget deficit for fiscal year 2013/14 would be around 12 percent.
Revenues amounted to some LE338 billion ($47.3 billion), compared to approximately LE271 billion ($37.9 billion) in the first eleven months of the previous year, with taxes contributing LE213 billion ($29.8 billion) of the total, or 63 percent, compared to LE204 billion ($28.5 billion), or 75 percent.
State expenditure increased to LE520 billion ($72.7 billion), from LE474 billion ($66.3 billion) in July 2012 to May 2013, with wages and compensation accounting for 29 percent of spending, slightly up from the same period of the previous year’s 26 percent.
Egypt’s government has enacted two stimulus packages worth a total of LE60 billion ($8.6 billion) since Islamist president Mohamed Morsi’s ouster last summer, including the introduction in January of a new public sector minimum wage, at an estimated cost of LE18 billion ($2.6 billion) a year.
Fuel subsidies totalled LE49 billion ($7 billion), accounting for Egyptian General Petroleum Company’s (EGPC) revenues and Gulf petroleum aid.
The report’s preliminary results show that Egypt’s total domestic debt stood at LE1.6 trillion ($223.8 billion) in March 2014, or 78.9 percent of GDP, compared to almost LE1.4 trillion ($195.8 billion) in the same period a year earlier.
External debt stands at LE45.7 billion ($6.5 billion) as of December 2013, or 15.5 percent of GDP, compared to LE38.8 billion ($5.6 billion) in December 2012, or 14 percent of GDP.
