Egypt's finance ministry announced on Sunday the implementation of the new budget for the 2018/19 fiscal year with a total of EGP 1.42 trillion in expenditures, an increase of EGP 200 billion from last year. Finance Minister Mohamed Maeet said in a statement that the new budget includes an unprecedented increase in allocations for education and health, reaching EGP 257.7 billion compared to EGP 222 billion last fiscal year. Maeet said that EGP 98.7 billion are allocated to the health sector, EGP 108 billion to pre-university education, and EGP 51 billion to higher education. The statement also said that the budget includes a monthly increase of EGP 265 in wages for the public sector to meet price hikes caused by cuts in fuel subsidies and by other austerity measures. Government investments financed by the General Treasury have increased by 42 percent from the previous fiscal year, reaching about EGP 100 billion against EGP 70 billion in the 2017/18 budget, according to the statement. Maeet said that economic growth for the first half of the current fiscal year is expected to reach 5.8 percent, rising to 6.5 - 7 percent by mid-year, which would contribute to the Central Bank's plan to reduce inflation rates to less than 10 percent. The minister stressed that he will work on economic and social development projects to improve services for citizens.
