Egypt’s target for economic growth in the 2009/10 fiscal year would remain 4.5 per cent, but could approach 5 per cent, the country’s finance minister said on Sunday.
“We are aiming for 4.5 (per cent), probably given the developments we are seeing in the domestic economy, and the development we are seeing abroad, we will be closer to 5 (per cent). But our formal target is 4.5,” Youssef Boutros-Ghali told reporters.
Growth in the 2008/09 fiscal year which ended on June 30 was around 4.6-4.7 per cent, he added.
Boutros-Ghali said that he was targeting a budget deficit of 8.5 per cent of GDP in the 2009/10 fiscal year.
He added that he aims for Egypt’s budget deficit to decline to 3 per cent by 2015, three years later than previous forecast.
“We will get to a path that brings down the budget deficit to around 3 per cent by say, 2015. Two, three years delay.”
Egypt’s economy grew at around an annualized 4.7 per cent in the third quarter of the 2008/2009 (July/June) fiscal year, the finance ministry has said.
