Minister of Finance Dr. Youssef Boutros Ghali has reiterated that the public debt is still under control despite its increase and is expected to improve.  Dr. Ghali has explained that the finance reform which is planned by the ministry is expected to lead to a drop in the ration of budget deficit to GDP by half.

Ghali said that updated statistics on internal debt depicts a rise in internal debt of the central government to 374 billion, a 63% of total GDP in March 2006 compared to 333.3  bn pounds in March 2005.

Foreign  debt has dropped by 4.3% or 28.9 bn pounds in March 2006.

Ghali said that foreign debt is within safe boundaries in view of the limited sums of short term debts.