Egypt's Ministry of Finance is set to complete a draft general budget for the financial year 2019/2020, announced Minister Mohamed Maait. The new budget will include reforming the state administration wage system, reducing deficit, and increasing governmental investments, notably in health and education sectors, Maait said in a statement to Al-Masry Al-Youm, on the sidelines of Egypt Economic Forum on Saturday. There will also be a new strategy for public debt management to reduce it to less than 90 percent of GDP, he said. A committee from the Ministries of Finance and Solidarity and the Central Auditing Organization have been set up to determine the size pension debts. The results of the study will be presented to the President within 30 days, including a wage reform plan to be implemented in July, Maait said. The ministry will begin applying the amendments to income taxes on bank investments with bills and treasury bonds, he said, pointing out that it was agreed with the Federation of Egyptian Banks on the settlement of receivables every three months. The Committee of the Plan and Budget of the House of Representatives has also issued its report on the final account of the state budget for the financial year 2017/2018 after the approval of a bill submitted by the Cabinet to link the final account of the budget. The Committee confirmed in its report that the final account witnessed an increase in expenditure from 104 million, 278 thousand in the previous budget, to 131 million, 416,000 pounds in the final account of the budget of financial year 2017/2018. The results of the final account showed total usage of 1,531 billion pounds during the financial year 2017/2018 from 1,317 billion pounds in the budget of financial year 2016/2017, making an increase of 16.2 percent, the Committee reported. It added that the repayment of loans fell from 273.2 billion pounds in financial year 2016/2017 to 267. 6 billion pounds in financial year 2017/2018, by 2.3 percent. Source: Al-Masry Al-Youm
