Egypt's GDP led to a 11.5% increase by end of 2021/2022

As part of the continuous efforts by the Government of Egypt (GoE) to improve Egypt’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) estimates, the Ministry of Planning and Economic Development (MPED) conducted a comprehensive review of GDP based on the results of the 2017/18 economic census, which was carried out by the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) and released in 2020. 

This round of the economic census was quite comprehensive in its coverage with 3.7 million economic establishments. Out of those establishments, 1,536 were in the public sector and public business sector, and about 3.7 million were in the private sector (formal and informal). The total number of workers in all establishments covered by the census was about 13.5 million.

This review was not only based on the results of the economics census, but it also benefited from the labor force survey data which was used, together with the census data, to estimate the level of informal activity outside establishments. This review has followed relevant methodologies recommended by international organizations such as the IMF and the OECD. Data from the Economic Authorities, the general government as well as mega-national projects was also used to obtain a more representative series of GDP in Egypt. 

This review process, which lasted for 16 months, resulted in a significant increase in the value of the nominal GDP amounting to LE 331 billion in the year of the economic census (2017/2018) raising GDP of the same fiscal year to LE 4.8 trillion, compared to LE 4.4 trillion before the review process (a 7.5 percent increase). It is expected that the increase would amount to LE 819 billion by 2021/2022 (a 11.5 percent increase) raising GDP again to reach LE 7.9 trillion by year end.

With regards to the sectoral distribution of the increase in GDP in 2017/2018, the majority of the increase came from the following sectors: construction (37 percent), followed by manufacturing (18 percent), education and health (9.4 percent), other services (8.8 percent), real estate activities and business services (8.8 percent), transportation and storage (6 percent), and electricity (4 percent), where these sectors contributed about 92 percent of the value of the increase in GDP in 2017/2018.

The GoE affirms that efforts to review the national account is a continuous process through following best-practices and international methodologies, and using the most recent techniques and technological tools, as well as benefiting from the different field surveys implemented by CAPMAS. It is expected that there will be another stage of the review process finalized by the end of this year.

MPED in cooperation with CAPMAS is also assessing the possibility of conducting the economic census every three instead of five years to maximize the benefit of the data provided by the census.