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Is Egypt’s strategic financial plan overly ambitious?

The Egyptian Ministry of Finance has an ambitious strategy for the next three years and the International Monetary Fund says Egypt is capable of achieving greater strategic objectives, but some economists on the ground have their worries.
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CAIRO — Some economists believe the strategic plan of the Egyptian Ministry of Finance for 2022, published March 8, is overly ambitious in terms of curbing the budget deficit and unemployment rate, increasing growth rates and foreign direct investment and boosting foreign monetary reserves. However, the fourth review report of Egyptian economic performance that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) published April 6 shows that many of these aspirations are reasonable.

In its report, the IMF said that Egypt had already seen its longtime primary deficit become a small surplus in the 2017-18 fiscal year and that Egypt should record a primary surplus of 2% of GDP in the 2018-19 and 2019-20 fiscal years. The report also expected the economic growth rate to increase to 5.9% in the 2019-20 fiscal year compared with 5.5% during the 2018-19 fiscal year, which began in July. The report says that foreign monetary reserves might increase slightly to $45.4 billion in 2019-20, and that foreign direct investment in the Egyptian market might increase from $9.5 billion in fiscal 2018-19 to $11.2 billion in fiscal 2019-20. The fund expected the unemployment rate to drop from 9.6% in 2018-19 to 8.3% in 2019-20.

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