Egypt aims to achieve a growth rate of 5.4% next year: Planning Minister

Dr. Hala El-Said, Minister of Planning and Economic Development, discussed today the main features of the 2022/21 plan of the medium-term sustainable development plan (2019/18 - 2022/21) at the Senate Financial, Economic and Investment Affairs Committee.


El-Said spoke about the development of growth rates, pointing to the starting stage from 2005/06 to 2008/2009, confirming that good growth rates had been achieved during that period, after which it decreased following the global financial crisis in 2008.
El-Said continued that the political and security developments in 2010-2011 led to a decrease in the growth rate to 1.8% to begin the phase of consolidating the foundations of the state in the period between 2015 to 2016/2017 and then the economic reform program in 2016 until the growth rate reached 5.6%. This reduced the growth rate to 3.6% last year.

Regarding the main targets of the development plan 21/2022, El-Said indicated that this year it is expected to reach a growth rate of 2.8% in the current fiscal year 2020/2021, and the target for next year is to achieve a growth rate of 5.4%. El-Said added that the target is to achieve an inflation rate of 5.6% in the current year and 6% next fiscal year.

 Concerning unemployment rates, El-Said explained that it is expected that the current fiscal year will end with an average of 7.5%, the unemployment rate, and the target for a gradual decrease to reach 7.3% in the next fiscal year while reducing poverty rates to 28.5% within the framework of increasing the volume of investments in the 2021/2022 plan.

El-Said added that there are expectations of a decrease in the poverty rate of 1: 1.5 points annually in the coming years.

El-Said emphasized that there is an increase in the volume of non-oil merchandise exports by about 10% to reach 19.5 billion dollars within the framework of the start of the structural reforms program while continuing to increase the remittances of Egyptians abroad to 7% to reach 30 billion dollars in 2021/2022, as it reached in Plan for the current fiscal year 28 billion.


El-Said added that with the start of the gradual recovery of the tourism sector, it is expected that we will reach 6 billion dollars in tourism income in 2021/2022 and 6 billion dollars for the Suez Canal, in addition to increasing foreign investment rates to 7.4 billion dollars in the 2021/2022 plan year.

On economic growth rates and sectoral contributions, Dr. Hala El-Said explained that the target of the plan is consistent with the estimates of international institutions, as the International Monetary Fund expects a growth rate of 5.5% in 2021/2022 and 2.8% in the current fiscal year.


 El-Said continued talking about the expectations of international institutions, pointing to him. The World Bank expects a growth rate of 5.8%, in addition to Fitch's forecast of 6%, and the economists forecast of 4.1% in 2021/2022.