Finance Minister Mohamed Ma’eit on Friday described the final account of 2020-2021 FY as a “new achievement” of Egypt.

The primary surplus has reached 1.46% of the GDP; used to finance part of the interests of the public debt and thus reducing the total deficit to 7.4% of GDP, despite repercussions of the coronavirus pandemic, the minister said.

Public spending on social dimension programs increased in the 2020/2021 budget, which led to an increase in the total expenditures of the last fiscal year by 10% to reach EGP 1.6 trillion, he added.

Public spending on wages and compensation increased to EGP 318.8 billion, compared to EGP 288.8 billion in 2019/2020, with a growth rate of 10.4%, while spending on subsidizing food commodities rose to EGP 83 billion, compared to EGP 80.4 billion in 2019/20 with a growth rate of 3.2% and an increase in actual spending on the social protection sector by 16.5% compared to 2019/2020.

Actual spending on the health sector reached EGP 107 billion, compared to EGP 87.1 billion in 2019/2020, with a growth rate of 22.8%, while spending on the education sector increased by 9.3% to reach EGP 158.7 billion compared to 145.2 billion pounds in 2019/2020, in addition to an increase in spending on public investments by 30.1 percent to 249.4 billion pounds, compared to EGP 191.6 billion in 2019/2020.

Public revenues have increased, as tax revenues amounted to EGP 834 billion, with a growth rate of 12.8 percent, compared to EGP 739.6 billion in 2019/2020.

Non-tax public revenues also rose to EGP 271.7 billion, with a growth rate of 17.8% compared to EGP 230.5 billion in the 2019/2020.

Source: State Information Service Egypt