Egypt's GDP growth registers 5% in Q4: Planning Ministry

CAIRO – 13 September 2017: Egypt’s gross domestic product (GDP) rose 5 percent in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2016/17, up from 4.5 percent in the year-ago period, Minister of Planning announced Wednesday.

Minister Hala el-Saeed attributed the growth to the telecommunication, construction and trade sectors.

There is an improvement in the foreign trade balance in the aforementioned period compared to negative indications in the same period of the previous year, Saeed said.
As for the whole fiscal year of 2016/2017, it ended at 4.2 percent, up from 4 percent in the previous fiscal year.

The unemployment rate fell to 11.9 percent in the fourth quarter of FY 2016/17, down from 12.5 percent in Q4 of FY 2015/16.

The minister highlighted that the government targets more decline in the unemployment rate, where it is working on injecting the market with better job opportunities through increasing the growth rates.

In August, Finance Ministry reported that

preliminary indicators of the GDP

are at 4.9 percent for the fourth quarter.