FILE - Minister of Planning and Economic Development Hala al-Said
CAIRO - 3 June 2021: Minister of Planning and Economic Development, Hala El-Said stated Wednesday that wholesale, retail, manufacturing, agriculture, and real estate accounted for 51.9 percent of the GDP in the first nine months of FY2020/2021, followed by the ICT sector, which contributed by 2.8-3.2 percent growing by16.2 percent.
The minister pointed out that Egypt recorded a growth rate of about 2.9 percent during the third quarter of FY2020/2021.
Concerning the sectoral growth rate in the third quarter of 2021/2020, El-Said confirmed that many economic activities achieved positive growth rates during the first half of the current fiscal year. Those are telecommunications, constructions, transportation, storage, agriculture, health, and education.
"The state's efforts represented in infrastructure projects, new cities and roads contributed to supporting the construction sector, revitalizing the economic cycle and pumping liquidity into the Egyptian economy to face the crisis," El-Said explained.
El-Said added that there are signs of recovery, coinciding with the extensive spread of vaccination campaigns in developed countries and the decline in infection rates, as many countries have removed travel and movement restrictions, as a gradual recovery is expected for the tourism sector in the coming period, in addition to the recovery of industry, trade and export alike.
Regarding the Suez Canal, El-Said confirmed that what the canal achieved during the past year in the year of the Corona pandemic indicates the success in developing several scenarios to confront crises, and put forward multiple alternatives, declaring that the Suez Canal achieved revenues of about $553.6 million in April 2021, which is the highest monthly revenue ever in The history of the Suez Canal, with an increase of 16.3 percent compared to April 2020.
El-Said indicated that the production index for February 2021 increased for the most important economic activities, bringing the total production index to 103.48 percent in February 2021, compared to 101.04 percent in January 2021, recording a growth rate consistent with the GDP growth rate of 2.42 percent.
Regarding government investments at current prices during the nine months from July to March for FY2020/2021, El-Said indicated that government investments increased to LE164 billion, compared to LE113 billion in the first nine months of FY2019/2020, an increase of 45 percent.
El-Said also announced a decline in the inflation rate in April 2021 to reach 4.4 percent on an annual basis, and 1.2 percent every month, with net foreign reserves continuing to rise for the tenth month in a row to reach $40.3 billion in April 2021 to cover the country's imports for 8 months.
El-Said explained that the Ministry of Planning and Economic Development forecasts future inflation rates using a macroeconomic model that predicts expected economic developments based on monitoring historical changes across time series.
El-Said added that there are indicators that confirm the strength and sustainability of the growth of the Egyptian economy, in spite of the repercussions of the Corona crisis, the positive indicators of growth rates were associated with a decrease in unemployment and inflation rates, which confirms the quality of the achieved growth and its positive impact on employment.
El-Said indicated that the remittances of Egyptians working abroad continued in the upward trend, recording $ 15.5 billion during the first half of this year, achieving an increase of about 10 percent compared to the period January-July 2020.
“Net foreign direct investments began to recover during the first half of FY2021/2020, to record net inflows of about $3.4 billion, compared to $2.5 billion during the previous half,” El-Said said.
El-Said added that Egypt has a diversified economy and possesses a large number of flexible sectors such as telecommunications, agriculture, transportation, storage, and construction.
El-Said stressed the importance of preserving economic institutions and entities, as well as preserving employment in these institutions, referring to the decisions of the Egyptian president regarding the irregular employment grant and support for all affected sectors, explaining that Egyptian labor is the human wealth of Egypt and it is national security.
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