Egypt: Budget Details

Launching Egypt’s draft 2015-16 budget, finance minister Hani Qadri Demian promised a classic policy mix of austerity and largesse. Demian said his main aims were to reprioritise public spending to improve basic services and strengthen social protection, while at the same time reducing the overall size of the budget. The deficit for the fiscal year 2015-16 is forecast at E£251bn ($32bn) – equivalent to 8.9% of GDP. This means the government is expecting the deficit to reduce by 4.6% from E£263bn in FY2014-15 on the back of a 27.7% increase in revenue to E£622bn and a substantially slower 17.4% increase in expenditure to E£868bn.