President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi directed the government to adopt a host of measures aimed at increasing the incomes of employees to raise their living standards. El-Sisi's directives came during a meeting on Saturday with Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly, Minister of Planning and Economic Development Hala El-Said, and Minister of Finance Mohamed Maait, as well as several deputy ministers. Egypt's Presidential Spokesperson Bassam Rady said in a statement that to achieve this target El-Sisi instructed the cabinet to approve a seven percent increase of the total salary to be paid as a bonus for workers addressed by the Civil Service Law, and another bonus for state employees not subject to the aforementioned law of 12 percent of the basic salary. The president increased the tax exemption limit for employees with annual salaries ranging from EGP 8,000 to EGP 15,000, and ordered the introduction of a new tax bracket of 2.5 percent for those who earn less than EGP 35,000 annually. Rady said the meeting also reviewed the draft budget of fiscal year 2020/2021. Maait explained that preliminary indicators showed an initial surplus of two percent of GDP, and a reduction in the budget deficit to 6.2 percent, down from 7.2 percent of the total GDP of the past fiscal year. He added that the public debt is expected to be reduced to 80 percent of GDP by the end of the next fiscal year, down from 108 percent of GDP in June 2017.
