Reforms program behind Egypt's economic stability: Arab banks union

HURGHADA - 26 July 2018: The Union Of Arab Banks stressed on Thursday that the reforms program carried out by the Egyptian government achieved positive results that helped restore the country's economic stability and put it back on the right track.

Secretary General of the union Wesam Fatouh, speaking at the Green Banking...the Road to Sustainable Development" conference, lauded the important measures taken by the Egyptian government to improve business climate, including enacting new laws regulating investment, bankruptcy and licence issuance.

Thanks to these economic reforms, the international community regained confidence in the Egyptian economy, he said, adding that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) expects Egypt's growth rate to hit 5.5 percent next year compared to 4.2 percent in 2017.

With the Egyptian economy standing on its foot once again, unemployment rate declined to 10.6 percent in the third quarter of 2017/2018 fiscal year with more declines expected to take place within the coming period.

These reforms led to the increase of foreign cash reserves to 44.26 billion dollars by the end of June against 19 billion dollars before the pound liberalization, he said.

The Egyptian financial policy aims at decreasing the budget deficit through increasing revenues and rationalizing spending, he said, adding that the IMF expects Egypt's budget deficit to decrease within the coming five years.

He said pound liberalization helped increase competitiveness of Egyptian products thus increasing demands on local products, a key factor behind the rise of growth rate.