Domestic debt reaches LE4.2T by end of March

CAIRO – 12 September 2019: Egypt's domestic public debt rose 18.8 percent or LE 97 billion by the end of March 2019 to hit LE 4.2 trillion, up from LE 3.5 trillion in the same month of the prior year,the Central Bank of Egypt revealed in its monthly bulletin.

The bulletin showed thatthe domestic public debt represented 79 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) by the end of March, compared to 77.1 percent by the end of 2018.

The bulletin stated that government debt allocated 86.4 percent of the total domestic debt,amounting to LE 3.6 trillion and marking an increase of LE 125.7 billion.

The percentage of debts on public economic bodies amounted to 7.3 percent of the total domestic public debt with a value of LE 307.6 billion, down by LE 32.4 billion, and amounted to 6.7 percent on the National Investment Bank worth LE 266.7 billion, marking an increase of LE 3.7 billion, the bulletin added.

The government succeeded in reducing the debt ratio of GDP from 108 percent at the end of June 2017, to 98 percent at the end of June 2018, and targets to reduce the debt rate of gross domestic product (GDP) to 77.5 percent in 2022.

In July, President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi called on officials to continue working on reducing the public debt and budget deficit by completing the implementation of the institutional and legislative reforms as well as the financial and monetary reforms.