Minister of Finance Dr. Youssef Boutros Ghali has affirmed that the economic index is yielding good results and that more reforms will be felt in the current fiscal year.

Dr. Ghali said that the actual growth rate has soared to 5.9% where a target rate is set at 6.9%.  The investment rate has also increased to 13.2% and the GDP  to 5.9%.

Dr. Ghali has also announced that the total budget deficit has dropped by 1.6% to 50.8 billion pounds while tax revenues have reached 97.1 billion pounds, customs have registered  9.4 billion pounds or a  21% increase while other revenues have reached 49 billion pounds.

Dr. Ghali has declared the launch of a plan to reduce budget deficit where local central government debt has soared to 374 billion pounds while foreign debt has dropped to 28.9 billion dollars at a rate of 4.3%.

Dr. Ghali has also noted that bank deposits have soared to 564 billion pounds including 85% non-government deposits.  Deposit loans have not exceeded 59% and export goods have increased by 38% to reach 13.5 billion dollars.

(source: Al-Akhbar)