Egypt’s public debt to increase by $5bn

Egypt’s public debt is likely to increase by 70 to 90 billion Egyptian pounds ($3.9-5.1 billion) after the country’s Central Bank decided to raise interest rates by three per cent, Al-Shorouq has revealed.

The newspaper cited an official source in the ministry of finance as saying that it has allocated 300 billion Egyptian pounds ($17.1 billion) to tackle the debt, which means that the figure is likely to rise.

The source explained that the overall deficit in the public budget declined by 1.9 per cent during the period July to September of the fiscal year 2016-2017 to reach 76.8 billion Egyptian pounds ($4.4 billion) compared to 78.3 billion ($4.5 billion) in the same period last year. This will not be an indicator of the deficit or surplus for the remainder of the current fiscal year, he added.