Saturday 19 Oct
The Central Bank of Egypt announced a 2.1% decrease in Egypt's public debt in the last quarter of the 2023-2024 fiscal year. The bank stated that the public debt reached 12.52 trillion Egyptian pounds at the end of June, compared to 12.78 trillion Egyptian pounds in March.
This came after the government reduced short-term domestic debt by 2.9% to 7.33 trillion Egyptian pounds, and medium-term debt by approximately 2.5% to 276.1 billion Egyptian pounds. Long-term debt also saw a decline of 1.1%, reaching 1.11 trillion pounds. Additionally, external government debt decreased by 0.8% to 3.79 trillion pounds in the second quarter, compared to 3.82 trillion Egyptian pounds in the first quarter.
A significant factor contributing
to this debt reduction was the primary surplus achieved in the last fiscal
year. This surplus amounted to 2.5% of GDP, increasing to 6.1% when non-tax
revenues from the Ras Al-Hikma project deal were included. The deal generated
inflows of $24 billion, with the government acquiring half of this amount.
The Ministry of Finance has outlined its plans to further reduce public debt to below 80% by 2027. This goal will be achieved through a combination of structural reforms, as outlined in the State Ownership Policy Document, and rationalization of subsidies.
