Capmas’ release of the income and expenditure survey results, and rising tax revenues were the talk of the town on the airwaves last night.

Egypt’s poverty rate rising to 32.5% is not all that surprising or unexpected, economist Bassant Fahmy told El Hekaya’s Amr Adib. Commenting on state statistics agency Capmas’ FY2017-2018 income and expenditure survey, Fahmy said that the average citizen is not expected to feel the positive impact of reforms yet at this point, and that reducing the poverty rate requires increasing investments and putting in more work to prop up manufacturing and trade (watch, runtime: 10:28). We have more details on the survey results in this morning’s Speed Round, below.

Tax revenues grew by 17% in FY2018-2019 to EGP 660 bn, up from EGP 566 bn in FY2017-18, according to Finance Ministry figures announced at a presser yesterday. Hona Al Asema’s Lama Gebril phoned economist Moustafa Badra, who said the increase is a result of a widening taxpayer base and a parallel “improvement in the [overall] mechanism of tax collection” (watch, runtime: 14:34).

Finally, an inflation infographic by the cabinet’s Information and Decision Support Center charting its fall over the past four years got some airtime on Al Hayah Al Youm (watch, runtime: 2:55). Annual headline inflation fell to its lowest June level in four years last month (8.9% nationwide and 9.4% in urban Egypt). This was compared to 11.5% in June a much higher 30.9% in June 2017.