Int'l institutions expect Egypt to achieve economic growth amid COVID-19 crisis: minister

CAIRO - 3 May 2020: The international institutions expected Egypt to be the sole nation across the world to achieve positive economic growth rate amid the outbreak of the novel coronavirus pandemic that has considerable impact on the global economy, said Minister of Planning and Economic Development Hala el Saeed on Sunday.

The minister was addressing the House of Representatives' Plan and Budget Committee that convened to discuss the outlines of the fiscal year 2020/2021 plan.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) expected that Egypt would achieve a growth rate of two percent in 2020, while other institutions envisaged that Egypt's growth rate may reach four percent, the minister said.

The macroeconomic indicators of Egypt have been high till mid -March 2020, Saeed said, noting that the Q4 of the current fiscal year, the period between April-June 2020, will witness a drop in the economic indicators due to the COVID-19 crisis.

The minister affirmed that the impact of the novel coronavirus would be grave and wider in scale than the great recession that hit the global economy in the 1920s and caused a 4.9 percent retreat as well as the 2008 financial crisis that led to a 4.6 decline of the global economy.

She added that the international financial institutions predicted that the coronavirus crisis would cause a global economic decline by up to seven percent.