Dr. Mohamed Maait, Minister of Finance, affirmed that the Egyptian economy is coherent in the face of harsh global challenges, which have cast a shadow on the economies of various countries, especially developing and emerging economies, noting that the structural reforms that the Egyptian government has been implementing during the past years have made our economy more solid in facing Internal and external shocks, despite the severity of successive financial crises, starting with the Corona pandemic, passing through the war in Europe, and the unprecedented rise in inflation rates, fuel and food prices, increased shipping costs, and disruption in supply chains.
In his meeting with representatives and investors of the Bank of America Symposium, on the sidelines of the meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in Washington, the minister said that the new budget took into account the exceptional global circumstances and gave priority to flexible dealing with inflationary effects, in a way that reduces the severity of these effects on citizens in particular. The most needy groups, along with maximizing financial discipline efforts, improving the business environment and simplifying procedures to stimulate investment, achieve positive growth rates, expand environmentally friendly projects, and support structural reforms so that the private sector leads the development engine and provides more productive job opportunities, pointing out He indicated that within the government offering program, 32 state-owned companies will be offered to strategic investors or go public on the Stock Exchange within a year, until the end of the first quarter of 2024.
The minister added that, despite all the successive global economic crises, we aim in the budget for the next fiscal year to achieve the highest primary surplus of 2.5% of GDP, with an increase in allocations for support, grants and social benefits by 48.8%, and an increase in allocations for university and pre-university education and research. Al-Alamy approved the budget for the next fiscal year by 19%, and increased financial allocations for spending on the health sector by 14%.
The minister indicated that there is an advanced priority for the digitization of the Egyptian state in accordance with the best international practices, and we have made great strides in digital transformation in various sectors of the ministry and the tax and customs authorities. In a way that contributes to modernizing the state’s public financial management systems, strengthening the governance of the expenditure and revenue system, raising the efficiency of tax and customs collection, and expanding the tax base.