What’s driving Egypt’s 5.6% GDP growth in 1Q2019-2020? The retail, agriculture, industrial, real estate, and telecoms sectors contributed the most to Egypt’s 5.6% GDP growth registered in 1Q2019-20, Planning Minister Hala El Said told cabinet yesterday. The sectors contributed to about 56% of Egypt’s GDP growth this quarter. She also noted that tourism, construction, manufacturing, and energy were the fastest growing sectors so far in the current fiscal year. She stressed that 5.6% so far in the year is not bad considering that global GDP growth is projected to come in at around 3% in 2019.

Who’s creating jobs? The construction, manufacturing, logistics and transportation sections appear to be the biggest hirers of 4Q2018-2019, with El Said naming them as the biggest contributor to Egypt’s falling in unemployment rate. Unemployment fell to 7.5% during 4Q2018-2019, from 9.9% in the same period last year.

Egypt’s non-oil exports rose 5% in 1Q2019-2020, while imports apparently plunged 13%, according to El Said, who didn’t provide specific figures. This contributed to the non-oil trade balance narrowing by 22%. Egypt’s non-oil trade widened by 13.4% to USD 38 bn in FY2018-2019.

There’ll be 132 mn of us by 2030: El Said cited population growth as one of the biggest hurdles to development, stating that the population will balloon to 132.3 mn Egyptians by 2030, from 100 mn today — and that’s assuming that the current population growth rate doesn’t increase.