Egypt recorded initial surplus of 25 billion Egyptian during the first nine months of the current FY2020/21 despite the COVID-19 crisis effects on economic activity, Minister of Finance Mohamed Maait announced on Tuesday. Egypt's annual revenues' growth rose by 14.6 percent in the current FY2020/21 (from July through March), while expenses increased by 11.2 percent during the same period as a result of the increase in governmental investment, mega projects, subsidies, social protection allocations as well as the rise in spending on health and education sectors, according to Maait. While, the total tax revenues went up by 13.5 percent, by the end of the third quarter of FY2020/21, including the non-sovereign tax revenues that increased with 43.1 billion pounds (grew by 10.4 percent). The sovereign tax revenues also jumped up 20.6 billion pounds (rose by 33 percent), as according to the minister. For social protection programmes, Maait said that 338.5 billion pounds were spent in the same period with a growth rate of 17.1 percent; 45.7 billion pounds on supply commodities subsidies with a growth rate of 23.8 percent and 12.9 billion pounds were spent on supporting Takaful and Karama as well as social insurance pensions with a growth rate of 7.3 percent. He added that allocations directed to finance the governmental investments also increased by 45 percent to reach 163.7 billion pounds, including the investments that are finance through the public treasury that rose by 29 percent to post 115 billion pound, compared to the same period of FY2019/20.
Maait pointed out to government efforts to extend the the public debt period, through which it reached three and a half years by the third quarter of FY2020/21, up from 1.3 years in 2013 and 1.8 years in 2014, adding that it is expected to reach between 3.6 and 3.8 years by end of the fiscal year.
The minister stressed that such figures reflect an unprecedent improvement in Egypt's budget fiscal performance during the three quarters of FY2020/21, owing to the fiscal and economic policies the government adopts.
