Egypt has received "many offers" to issue dollar bonds in foreign markets, Minister of Finance Hany Kadry Dimian told Daily News Egypt Tuesday on the sidelines of the Euromoney conference. Dimian said, however, that it is a matter waiting for the "appropriate moment" to make the issuance. "We [the government] are looking to tap all sources of capital from the international and domestic market," the minister said. Discussing who would act as a guarantor for Egypt if it decided to issue dollar bonds, whether it would be the Egyptian government or another country, the minister said: "We can have a full, or a partial, or no guarantor at all." During the conference, the minister stated that 90% of energy subsidies will be removed within three years. Earlier this month, Minister of Electricity Mohamed Shaker announced that the government will extend the removal of electricity subsidies over five years, instead of the previously announced three years. Dimian told Daily News Egypt, however, that it is "too early" to know the percentage that will be removed each year. "We [the government] already removed EGP 50bn in energy subsidies and we streamlined and saved from other subsidies programmes some EGP 2 to EGP 3bn just from improving the modalities nothing else," the minister said. On Tuesday, President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi told Daily News Egypt that "the energy sector will also revive as the energy subsidies are overhauled, leading to renewed exploration and production". "The decision to roll back energy subsidies demonstrates the boldness and vigour with which the government is now pursuing reforms. These subsidies had subsumed a massive portion of the national budget, costing the treasury EGP 143bn in the 2013/2014 fiscal year, or roughly 20% of the entire budget," Al-Sisi added.
