CAIRO: The Shoura Council, Egypt's Upper House of Parliament, approved a draft of the national state budget for the fiscal year 2010/2011. “The state budget has to work on creating social justice for all, income equality and encourage investment,” said MP Shawki El-Sayed, head of the legislative committee at the Shoura Council. “More money has to be allocated for education and human development; it also has to combat bureaucracy and corruption and if the state budget fails to achieve this then it has failed and will hinder the socioeconomic development plan,” he explained. A draft of the state budget was approved by Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif before it was presented to the Shoura Council. At the time, a statement by Cabinet spokesman Magdy Rady said that the state budget has four main objectives: lowering the income tax; seeking new ways to attract investment, maintaining and rationalizing subsidies and minimizing the budget deficit. Rady said that the Egyptian economy could witness a decline of some resources mainly taxes, adding that the volume of taxes will be negatively affected by the implications of the global financial crisis. He also explained that the government aims to bring the deficit down to the least possible level and that it will work on attracting more investments and increasing exports. On the other hand, Shoura Council MP Mohamed El Ghamrawy believes that the budget needs to be reconfigured so that “petroleum subsidies are decreased and more money is put into education and health sectors and combating poverty,” he said. According to news reports, a number of MPs were demanding that the amount of money allocated for export support in the budget be reduced. However, Finance Minister Youssef Boutros Ghali objected, saying that the amount of exports has doubled because of that budget, adding that the number of companies that export went up from 200 to 2,000. He explained that the budget supports production, boosting exports and creating employment opportunities.
