Egypt’s actual gross home product (GDP) grew by 2.4 % from July 2023 to March 2024, a slowdown in comparison with the 4.1 % development throughout the identical interval final 12 months, in keeping with a report by the Central Financial institution of Egypt (CBE) launched on Wednesday. The decelerate is attributed to ongoing world financial pressures, together with geopolitical tensions, excessive inflation, and elevated rates of interest.
The CBE’s Monetary Stability Report for March 2024 highlights that the present financial challenges going through Egypt are carefully tied to the advanced regional and worldwide surroundings.
Regardless of this decelerate, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly introduced that Egypt’s exterior debt had decreased by over USD 15 billion inside the final six months. Madbouly emphasised the federal government’s continued dedication to financial reforms, with a selected give attention to empowering the personal sector and sustaining monetary stability.
As a part of its broader financial agenda, Egypt has set an formidable aim to convey inflation all the way down to under 10 % by the top of 2025. Madbouly famous that allocating a portion of the nationwide funds to public tasks would play a key function in reaching this goal, significantly by way of infrastructure and clear power investments.
Nonetheless, the nation can also be grappling with a big loss in Suez Canal revenues. President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi confirmed that the canal has suffered a lower of 50-60 % in revenues this 12 months, amounting to a month-to-month lack of roughly USD 600 million, or USD 6 billion in complete. The decline, attributed to heightened geopolitical tensions within the area, is a serious blow to Egypt’s economic system, which closely depends on Suez Canal revenues as a supply of international forex.
Along with these losses, Egypt can also be feeling the influence of sharp fluctuations in world oil and gold markets. Rising oil costs have elevated import prices for the nation, whereas gold’s surge has influenced each inside and exterior markets, complicating the federal government’s efforts to stabilize the economic system.
