Budget deficit retreated to 7.9%, achieving initial surplus of 1.8% over the last fiscal year.

• We have succeeded in reducing public debt in spite of the increase of public indebtedness by 15% for all countries.
• Promising projects were accomplished to modernize and automate taxation and customs systems as a means to attract investments.
• Economic reforms granted the Egyptian economy a solid ground in confronting Corona pandemic.

Belgium Ambassador to Cairo: "We are eager to encourage investments in Egypt"

In spite of Corona pandemic, the financial reform efforts adopted by the government over the past years, had positive consequences on the State’s general budget basic indicators.  Budget deficit reduced to 7.9% of GDP, achieving initial  surplus  of 1.8% in 2019/2020.  Besides, the public debt to GDP dropped from 108% in June 2017 to 88% in 2020 in spite of the increase of the average public indebtedness for all countries by 15% during 2020, stated Dr. Maait.

 

In his meeting with Mr. Francois Cornet, Belgium ambassador, the minister stated that the economic reforms implemented by the government had granted the Egyptian economy a great resilience to deal with Corona crisis in a flexible and balanced way; hence, achieving a positive growth rate over the past fiscal year with 3.6%, and enabling  Egypt to register the third highest growth rate worldwide.

 

The minister added that Egypt achieved promising projects to modernize and automate tax and customs systems in a way that encourages national and foreign investments.

 

The first phase of the automated unified tax procedure system was launched at the beginning of January 2021 at the Large Taxpayers and Medium Taxpayers Centers, along with that of  the seniors of free professions,  to be accordingly rolledout to the rest tax offices in Egypt through four phases ending 2022.  This is a real translation of efforts exerted to integrate, simplify and automate procedures of tax linkage and collection in an accurate way that takes into consideration the technical privacy for each tax, hence reflecting the rights and commitments of taxpayers or relevant persons provided for  in the Unified Tax Procedures. This contributes to establishing an integrated digital system  and to providing electronic and remote services.

 

Moreover, the Minister assured that Egypt was able to be among the first leading countries to apply e-invoice in MENA region.

 

‘We continue developing customs system targeting to link all land, sea and air ports with an electronic platform through the National Unified Single Window (NSW) by the end of next June.  This will contribute to simplifying procedures, reducing customs clearance time and reducing prices of goods and services in local markets.  Accordingly, this will help Egypt improve its rating in three important international indexes (World competitiveness Index, Ease of Doing Business report and Macroeconomic Environment Index), which in turn will boost investment environment’,  the Minister clarified.

 

Belgium ambassador expressed his gratitude for the Egyptian efforts to modernize and automate tax and customs systems, that help in boosting an environment for investment and simplifying procedures for taxpayers.  Besides, he praised the economic reform methodology directed by Egyptian government, stressing his interest in encouraging the Belgium investments in Egypt in all sectors, namely: energy and transportation. He was pleased with the development of the Baron Palace in Heliopolis which represents a model for the joint cooperation between the two countries.

 

The two parties discussed some suggestions to strengthen cooperation between the Ministry of Finance in Egypt and its counterpart in Belgium to exchange experiences in dealing with economic crises and how to limit their impacts on the local economic activities.

 

Ambassador Mr. Hossam Hasan,  MoF consultant for foreign affairs, and Doa’a Hamdy, MoF Acting Head of Foreign Relations Unit,  attended this meeting.