Egyptian economy grows 2% in Q2 of FY20/21

CAIRO – 10 March 2021: The Egyptian economy was able to maintain a positive growth rate during the second quarter of the current fiscal year 2020-2021 “from October to December 2020”, reaching 2 percent, Minister of Planning and Economic Development, Hala El-Said said Wednesday.

El-Said clarified in a statement that the average growth rate of the Egyptian economy during the first half of the current fiscal year amounted to about 1.35 percent from July to December last year, compared to 5.6 percent during the same period of the previous fiscal year.

She emphasized that expectations indicate that the growth rate will continue to rise during the third and fourth quarters of the current fiscal year, reaching about 2.8 percent and 5.3 percent, respectively.

The minister added that many economic activities achieved positive growth rates during the first half of the current fiscal year, such as the transport and storage sectors, agriculture, health, and education, pointing out tothe decline in contraction in economic activities most affected by the crisis, such as tourism, manufacturing industries and the Suez Canal.

El-Said pointed out that the global economic recession led to a decline in international trade patterns accompanied by travel restrictions applied in more than 100 countries, which negatively affected the industrial, export and tourism sectors alike.

She also pointed out that despite the challenges of the coronavirus crisis during the year 2020 and the resulting decline in global trade movement by 9 percent, the global economy shrinking by 3.5 percent, and the drop in oil prices, the Suez Canal has implemented a package of attractive and flexible incentives related to marketing and pricing policies, to attract new customers, contributed to reducing the size of the downturn in activity, as the Suez Canal maintained the level of its revenues.

The minister pointed out that the unemployment rate continued to decline to 7.2 percent during the second quarter of the fiscal year 2020/2021, after declining to 7.3 percent in the first quarter, as a result of the partial return to economic activity with the general tendency to ease the restrictions of closure, with the improvement of the performance of some work-intensive activities (such as wholesale and retail trade and agriculture).