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Wednesday, 23 December 2020

The year in development finance

The International Cooperation Ministry marshaled USD 9.8 bn to finance development projects in 2020, with USD 6.7 bn allocated to government projects and USD 3.1 bn going to support the private sector, Minister Rania Al Mashat said yesterday during the launch of the ministry’s annual report (pdf). Al Mashat — who took over the ministry a year ago — reviewed the measures taken by the government at large during the year to confront the repercussions of the “extremely difficult” pandemic. These measures include new financial policies, interest rate cuts, tax breaks, reducing energy prices for the industrial sector, and support for day laborers.

The transport sector received the most public sector financing this year at USD 1.7 bn, followed by water and sanitation with USD 1.4 bn, and energy with USD 677 mn. Budget support and social solidarity initiatives received USD 638 mn and USD 505 mn respectively.

The European Investment Bank provided the most financing for the private sector, earmarking USD 1.9 bn this year, followed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development with USD 641 mn and the International Finance Corporation with USD 421 mn. Al Mashat highlighted the effectiveness of initiatives taken by international institutions during covid-19 such as the World Bank’s USD 50 bn response fund targeting Africa.

Next year will see the private sector receive more financing, said Al Mashat, who highlighted green projects as a priority sector.

Want to hear more on the report? Al Mashat had a chat with each of Yahduth fi Misr’s Sherif Amer (watch, runtime: 8:11) and Masaa DMC’s Ramy Radwan (watch, runtime: 4:40) to recap the broad strokes of the report and the year in development finance for Egypt.

Want the tl;dr version? Watch it here (runtime: 1:30).

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