Minister: Government investments in 2019/2020 up by 26%

CAIRO - 3 September 2020: Planning Minister Hala el Saeed said government investments, carried out in 2019/2020, witnessed a 26-percent rise and they covered education, health, transport, housing, communications, industry, irrigation and local development domains.

Saeed made the remarks during a weekly meeting of the cabinet.

She said 18 billion pounds were earmarked to drinking water and sanitation domains, making up 10 percent of total government investments implemented in 2019/2020.

She added that a 55-percent rise in government investments is expected in 2020/2021.

She said the global economy is likely to decline by about 4.9% in 2020, and many emerging and developed countries are expected to be greatly affected and achieve negative growth rates due to repercussions of the coronavirus pandemic.

She said the Egyptian economy achieved a 3.5-percent growth rate in 2019/2020 due to the outbreak of coronavirus, adding that without swift measures and stimulus packages the government took once the crisis began, the economy was projected to achieve 1.9 percent growth rate.

Before the outbreak of the deadly virus, the national economy was expected to achieve a 5.8 percent growth rate.

She said the crisis increased unemployment rate but at the end of the final quarter of 2019/2020 it began to decline which is a good indicator on the return of economic activities.

She noted that the unemployment rate in Egypt is still less than that registered in many advanced countries during the crisis.

As for the inflation rate, it hit 4.6% in July due to the decrease in food and beverage prices by 1.5%, she said, adding that inflation rate is still within accepted limits compared to many other countries.

Non-oil exports achieved their largest earnings in more than 10 years while the trade balance achieved a progress during the first nine months of the fiscal year 2019/2020.

Trade deficit dropped by about 5.4 as a result of a decrease in imports by 3.3%, and an increase in exports by about 0.5%.