President El-Sisi Updated on Draft Budget for Fiscal Year 2021/2022

President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi met today with Prime Minister Dr. Mostafa Madbouly and Minister of Finance Dr. Mohamed Maait, in the presence of Vice Minister of Finance for Fiscal Policies Mr. Ahmed Kouchouk and Vice Minister of Finance for Public Treasury Dr. Ehab Abou Aish.
The Spokesman for the Egyptian Presidency stated that the meeting discussed the draft budget for the next fiscal year 2021/2022.

In this context, the President issued the following directives:

- Approving salary increases for employees in the state’s administrative apparatus, ranging at EGP 37 billion.

-Raising the minimum wage to 2,400 Egyptian Pounds.

-Approving two allowances at a cost of EGP 7.5 billion. The first one is a periodic allowance for employees subject to the Civil Service Law at a rate of 7% of the wage and the second is an allowance for workers who are not subject to the Civil Service Law at a rate of 13% of the basic salary.

-Increasing the additional incentive granted to both employees who are subject to the Civil Service Law and those who are not at a total cost of about EGP 17 billion.
-Increasing the pensions by 13% at a total cost of EGP 31 billion.

-Promoting employees who meet the promotion requirements on 6/30/2021. With that, their wages will increase according to the value referred to in the law at an estimated cost of EGP 1 billion.

-Allocating a financial incentive estimated at about EGP 1.5 billion for workers who are transferred to the New Administrative Capital.

The Spokesman stated that the Minister of Finance presented the most prominent features of the draft budget for the fiscal year 2021/2022. According to the Minister, it includes a 9 % increase in the growth rate over the current year’s estimates. The draft budget aims to reduce the total deficit to about 6.6% of the GDP and achieve an initial surplus of 1.5% of GDP, while maintaining the indebtedness rates, he noted.

Dr. Maait also pointed out that this budgetary procedure contributes to maintaining financial stability amid the repercussions of the coronavirus pandemic and supporting and stimulating the economy without prejudice to the sustainability of budget and debt indicators.

The budgetary procedures also seek to maintain the sustainability of financial discipline and government indebtedness, support the economic activity- in particular industry and export- promote social protection efforts, and improve the citizens’ standard of living.

Moreover, human development will be promoted, especially in terms of health and education, through several steps, the most important of which is allocating EGP 2.1 billion to finance the national project aimed to replace old vehicles with new ones- about 70,000 taxicabs, microbuses, and private cars.

In addition, the education and health systems are to be developed; the necessary measures to improve the financial conditions of teachers and doctors will be taken and support will be further provided to the industrial and export sectors.

The Spokesman added that the President was also briefed, during the meeting, on the development of the tax system. In this regard, His Excellency called for expediting the implementation of the digital transformation and system governance projects of the tax system and finalizing them before the end of the next fiscal year.