President El-Sisi Meets with PM and Minister of Finance

President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi met today with Prime Minister Dr. Mostafa Madbouly, Minister of Finance Dr. Mohamed Maait and Vice Minister of Finance for Fiscal Policies Ahmed Kouchouk.

The Spokesman for the Egyptian Presidency stated that the meeting addressed the indicators of financial performance during July and August 202 and the state's measures to meet the financial needs of various sectors to deal with the repercussions of coronavirus.

In this context, the President gave directives for continuing to follow-up and study the situation regularly with regard to the economic repercussions of coronavirus with the aim of ensuring the stability of financial policies and maintaining a Covid-safe economy.

The Minister of Finance presented the financial situation of the state during the last period, stressing that the Egyptian economy has achieved positive growth rates during the fiscal year 2019/2020, amounting to about 3.5%. Hence, Egypt is among the emerging countries that marked a major economic achievement amid the coronavirus pandemic. Additionally, Egypt has managed to reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio during the same period.

The Minister of Finance also presented an unprecedented increase in government investments financed from the state budget during July / August 2020 by 85%, which would contribute to raising the quality of services, improving infrastructure and fostering the economic activity. Additionally, the public budget revenues have increased by nearly 18% during this period. As a result, the budgetary entities have been strongly supported and the stability of financial institutions has been maintained.

Regarding the state's continuous efforts to support the industrial and export sectors, the President emphasized that all the arrears and unpaid dues of about 20 billion pounds of the exporters must be paid to the Export Development Fund. With that, the state would pursue providing liquidity for industrial and export sectors given their significance.

The efforts of the Ministry of Finance to keep foreign investments in government securities, starting last June, were also discussed, through handling the coronavirus crisis efficiently, especially via developing debt tools available to investors and increasing trading levels.