Egypt’s budget deficit at $10.5b in 2023/24

Egypt’s total budget deficit fell to 505 billion Egyptian pounds ($10.5 billion) in fiscal 2023/24 that ended on June 30, compared with 610 billion pounds a year earlier, finance minister Ahmed Kouchouk said in a statement.

The country recorded a preliminary surplus of 857 billion Egyptian pounds in the 2023/24 budget compared with 164 billion Egyptian pounds in the previous year, the minister added.

Egypt devalued its currency in March to curb rising inflation. The pound was fixed at 30.85 per dollar for a year before plunging towards 50, and it is now trading at around 47 to the dollar.

Revenues went up by around 59.3 per cent in 2023/24, the minister added.

Egypt let its pound plunge by around 29 per cent in March and have since increased the prices of essential subsidies like bread and fuel in a bid to limit the budget deficit.

Meanwhile Egypt’s central bank left its overnight interest rates unchanged on Thursday, as expected, saying economic growth remained slow but that inflation has been decreasing.

The bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) left the deposit rate at 27.25 per cent and the lending rate at 28.25 per cent.

All but one of 18 analysts in a Reuters poll had expected rates to remain unchanged, with the sole analyst forecasting a cut of 100 basis points (bps). The decision keeps the overnight deposit rate below that of headline inflation, which was 27.5 per cent in June. Real interest rates have been negative since January 2022. Inflation declined in June for a fourth straight month after soaring to a record 38 per cent in September. The MPC expects inflation to come down sharply in the first half of 2025.

“The gradual unwinding of food inflation along with the improvement of inflation expectations suggest that inflation is on a sustained downward trajectory,” the MPC said. Gross domestic product inched down to an annualised 2.2 per cent in the first quarter from 2.3 per cent in the final quarter of 2023, the MPC added.