Egypt Predicts 5.6% Economic Growth

Newspaper Title: https://english.aawsat.com/

Newspaper Number:

Wednesday - 24 November 2021

Egyptian Minister of Planning and Economic Development Hala Al-Saeed said that the country was expected to have an economic growth of 5.6% in the 2021-2022 fiscal year.

“Egypt has firmly faced the Covid-19 crisis thanks to the reforms implemented since 2016,” the ministry’s Facebook page quoted the minister as saying during an event on Tuesday.

She continued: “Despite the economic repercussions of the pandemic, economic growth is expected to rebound strongly to 5.6% in the fiscal year 2021-2022,” which concludes at the end of June 2022.

Saeed noted that Egypt ranked second among the most attractive Arab destinations for foreign direct investment in 2020 and was the largest recipient of foreign direct investment in Africa the same year, with inflows into the country representing 15% of the total USD39.8 billion coming to the continent.

The Egyptian government has invested in infrastructure in recent years, the minister remarked, explaining that the government’s participation was necessary to stimulate growth and pave the way for the engagement of the private sector.

Minister of International Cooperation Rania Al-Mashat said, for her part, that the Board of Executive Directors of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank approved a financing of USD360 million for Egypt.

The minister added that the funding aimed to support the state’s efforts to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic and to strengthen the economic and structural reform program.

This comes as Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly announced on Tuesday that his country intended to list five to six state-owned companies on the stock exchange before the end of the current fiscal year.

He added that the move was intended to stimulate trading in the Egyptian Stock Exchange, which recorded the worst performance this year among emerging markets.