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Egypt Achieves Highest Budget Surplus in 15 Years

The 0.2% budget surplus is definitely a welcome confidence booster to the country’s recovering economy.

Staff Writer

Egypt Achieves Highest Budget Surplus in 15 Years

In a turn of slightly optimistic news for all you economists (or otherwise) out there, Finance Minister Dr. Mohamed Maait has gone on record this past Thursday announcing the country’s highest budget surplus in 15 years. According to Maait, an 0.2% overflow (EGP 4 billion) in the 2017/2018 fiscal year has been achieved – a billion stronger than the last fiscal year’s EGP 3 billion (Egypt’s fiscal year runs from July to June).

Call it whatever you want to (we prefer progress), but the country’s economy has been steadily on the path to recovery for quite some time, with foreign reserves rising to a record $44.258 billion from $44.139 billion by the end of June alone. However, 2017/2018’s budget deficit landed squared on 9.8%, as opposed to the Finance Ministry’s projected 9.1%. You can blame rapidly rising fuel prices in addition to the world’s economy being about as stable as you’d expect it to be.

The Ministry hopes to work towards a 2% surplus for the current 2018/2019 fiscal year – ambitious to say the least.

Main image from Middle East Online.