CAIRO: The Egyptian government allocated 602 million EGP (U.S. $101 million) for the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections as part of the 2011-2012 general budget. The government also allocated around 1.2 billion EGP (U.S. $202 million) for increasing the salaries of doctors and nurses. University staff will be granted around 745 million EGP (U.S. $125 million), an increase of 124 percent. As for the two stages of the teachers' development program, the government allocated 7 billion EGP (U.S. $1.2 billion) for the next year. Regarding pensions, the Ministry of Finance specified 1.2 billion EGP (U.S. $202 million) as an increase for pensions and minimum pension wages. 2.8 billion EGP (U.S. $471 million) is the budget appropriate for pension according to the Article No. 115 in the Pension Law of 2008. Around 11.8 billion EGP (U.S. $1.9 billion) is budgeted to pay off Egypt's debt. 1.3 billion EGP (U.S. $219 million) is allocated for foreign currency fluctuation and for bonds, which are expected to be issued next year. Two billion EGP (U.S. $337 million) is allocated for accumulating interest of special funds and accounts. To revive economic growth, investment volume increased from 40.1 billion EGP (U.S. $6.7 billion) to 55.9 billion EGP (U.S. $9.4 billion). Moreover, the budget includes consideration of reform in procedures in the Tax Law of income and outcome. It is expected Egypt's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will increase by 3.2 percent to 1.57 trillion EGP (U.S. $266 billion) according to the general budget. The average income of an Egyptian will reach 19,322 EGP (U.S. $3,252). The budget tax collection reached 232 billion EGP, which represents 66 percent of the new budget of the coming year, which is 350 billion EGP (U.S. $59 billion).
