Egypt gov’t re-setting spending priorities, says FinMin

Cairo, Egypt (Capital Markets in Africa) — The Egyptian government has set a fiscal programme with the aim of rearranging priorities for public spending, through reforming energy subsidies system and increasing taxes, in addition to more efficient management of public debt, said Finance Minister Hani Kadri Dimian.

He added that the government is working on achieving an economic breakthrough that reflects positively on citizens.

Early this year, the government prepared a package of fiscal and economic policies with the aim of pushing the economic activity and achieving fiscal stability, in addition to reducing budget deficit, which will help curb the surge in prices, according to the minister.

The fiscal and structural reforms had positive impact as shown in some economic indicators. For example, the country’s gross domestic product growth accelerated to around 4.3% during the period October-December, 2014, compared with 1.4% in the same period a year earlier. In addition, unemployment for the period April-June, 2014 retreated to 12.9%, from 13.4% during the year-earlier period.

In May, Standard and Poor’s revised its outlook for Egypt economy to ‘Positive’ from ‘Stable’. This was the fourth positive action towards evaluation of the Egyptian economy in the last seven months, the minister showed.