Cairo - Mubasher: Egypt's finance minister said that the budget for fiscal year 2017/2018 will see a rise in spending on social security programmes.
Amr El-Garhy added in a statement on Sunday that provisions for the Karama and Takaful programmes, as well as the solidarity pensions will be increased by 50%, from EGP 10 billion to EGP 15 billion next year.
Subsidy funds will also be raised by 30%, while public spending on health and education sectors will also increase.
Egypt’s Takaful and Karama social safety nets programme is currently covering about 1.5 million families from the country’s poorest and most vulnerable, according to the World Bank.
The minister’s remarks came at the end of the fourth workshop of the Ministry of Finance’s (MoF) strategic planning forum.
The Egyptian government seeks to cut the FY17/18 budget deficit to around 9% of the gross domestic product (GDP) as opposed to levels that reached 13% in recent years, the minister also noted.
Next year’s budget will be the first since the government went through with the economic reform programme in coordination with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to control the staggering budget deficit to restructure the Egyptian economy and reform both subsidies and exchange rate systems.
In November, the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) floated the pound, and reduced fuel subsidies, it then received $2.75 billion as the first tranche of the IMF’s loan, which totals $12 billion.
