Egypt has a variety of economic factors that will enable it to achieve strong growth in the coming years, provided that the implementation of financial and monetary reforms continues, chief economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Maurice Obstfeld has said.
Yet, “Egypt's public debt rates are a major challenge,” he told a meeting held at the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt on Thursday.
Obstfeld said Egypt is able to achieve higher growth rates than it does now, but it needs to improve the business climate and provide the necessary laws to facilitate it, and support the private sector and small and medium-sized enterprises.
An IMF team visited Egypt in October to conduct the fourth review of Egypt’s economic reform program. It said the Egyptian economy has continued to perform well supported by the authorities’ strong implementation of the reform program.
Gross general government debt declined from 103 percent of GDP in 2016/17 to about 93 percent of GDP in 2017/18, supported by fiscal consolidation and higher growth, it added.
In his meeting at the Chamber of Commerce, Obstfeld said that the IMF cut the forecast for global economic growth in the current year 2018 and the next 2019 by 0.2 percent to 3.7 percent, in view of the global expansion that is less balanced with the latest round rates imposed by the United States on China's imports.
