Maait’s speech to G20 meeting of finance ministers dominates Egypt’s airwaves
Finance Minister Mohamed Maait’s speech at the G20 meeting of finance ministers in Japan caught the attention of the nation’s talking heads last night.
Maait highlighted economic and fiscal sector reforms during the speech, Al Hayah Al Youm’s Lobna Assal reported (watch, runtime: 2:45). He provided the usual rundown of macroeconomic targets recently announced by the government, including the goal to grow the economy at a 6% clip in the coming fiscal year and reduce the budget deficit to 7.2% of GDP.
The key takeaway from the speech: Maait told the summit that the Sisi administration is engaging in a two-pronged strategy to stimulate economic growth: increasing government spending on healthcare and education (most notably though Egypt’s expected nationwide insurance scheme under the Universal Healthcare Act) and raising levels of public investment to create jobs.
Hona Al Asema’s Reham Ibrahim, meanwhile, weighed in on a recent report by FocusEconomics on Egypt’s economic outlook (watch, runtime: 12:03). We published a snapshot of the report’s findings in yesterday’s issue.
Ibrahim phoned Heliopolis Housing and Development (HHD) Managing Director Sahar Al Damati for her two cents. The report’s findings, which forecasts economic growth of 5.5% in both FY2019-2020 and FY2020-2021, are conservative, Al Damati claimed, suggesting that the figure will be closer to 6%. She justified this statement by citing higher FX reserves, falling public debt levels, a narrowing trade deficit, a primary budget surplus, and the ongoing major national projects.