Egypt has lowered its growth target for fiscal year 2020-2021 to 3.5 percent, down from its original target of 5.8 percent, as a result of the coronavirus outbreak, Minister of Planning and Economic Development Hala al-Saed announced.
Addressing a statement on the sustainable development draft plan before the House of Representatives, Saed said that Egypt’s Growth Domestic Product (GDP) was estimated at LE4.2 trillion according to fixed prices and at LE6.8 trillion according to current prices, impacted by the economic recession worldwide.
In the April World Economic Outlook, the International Monetary Fund projected global growth in 2020 to fall to -3 percent.
Egypt has carried out a large package of economic, financial and monetary measures including allocating LE100 billion to confront the crisis, provide support to afflicted sectors such as health, tourism and industry, revitalize the Egyptian Stock Exchange and support regular and irregular employment.
Saed said that Egypt’s economic reform program has borne fruit, such as by increasing the GDP up to 5.6 percent, reducing unemployment to less than eight percent, and decreasing the inflation rate to five percent.
The foreign exchange reserves recovered 8.5 months of imports while the non-oil trade balance deficit decreased by 24 percent, Saed said, adding that foreign direct investment increased by 19 percent and worker remittances rose by 13 percent.
She hoped that the telecommunications, agriculture, construction, pharmaceutical and chemical industry sectors will adapt to the repercussions of coronavirus crisis.
