Finance Minister Ahmed Kojok affirmed that most economic and financial indicators are very encouraging, making us more ambitious this year. The economic growth rate doubled during the first nine months of the last fiscal year from 2.4% to 4.2% and reached 4.8% in the period from January to March 2025.
Kojok said at a conference of the Egyptian-Canadian Business Council, chaired by Moataz Raslan, that industry growth exceeded 15% after two years of slowdown, tourism grew by 17%, and the communications and information technology sector continued to achieve high growth rates. Non-oil exports have risen by 33% and average inflation has fallen below 15%.
He added that during the last fiscal year, we achieved the highest primary surplus of 3.5% of GDP with increased spending on health, education and vital sectors, explaining that the private sector is moving at an encouraging pace, accounting for 65% of total investments and achieving an annual growth rate of 73%.
He pointed out that we aim to launch the second package of “tax facilities” during the current fiscal year and to launch the tax policy document before the end of 2025 in order to ensure stability, certainty and tax clarity. He pointed out that the growth rate in tax revenues during the last fiscal year reached 35% without any increase in tax burdens and rates, and that the growth rate of tax revenues to GDP was close to 1% without any burdens, which confirms the success of the path of trust and partnership with the business community.
He explained that half a million taxpayers voluntarily submitted new and amended returns with additional taxes amounting to nearly EGP 60 billion, and we received about 170,000 requests to close old tax files and refunded EGP 7.5 billion to taxpayers as “added value.” Seventy thousand taxpayers also voluntarily applied to join the simplified tax system to take advantage of the incentives, noting that we aim to approve various incentives for the first 100,000 taxpayers from small projects who join the simplified tax system.
Kojok confirmed that the current fiscal year will see new packages of facilities in the customs and property tax systems.
He said: “People’s concerns about debt are appreciated, and I assure everyone that we have begun to reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio and aim to improve all indicators in the coming period,” pointing out that we are continuing to reduce the external debt of budgetary agencies from $1 billion to $2 billion annually.
He noted that we are working to achieve a breakthrough in the payment of dues to pharmaceutical companies to boost the growth of this vital sector.
