During today’s cabinet meeting, Egypt’s Minister of Planning and Economic Development, Hala Al-Saeed, disclosed that the Egyptian economy increased by 7.8 percent in the first nine months of the fiscal year (FY) 2021/2022, compared to 1.9 percent last year.
According to the minister, the growth rate hit 5.4 percent in Q3 of the FY (January-March 2022), and the real growth rate is predicted to reach 6.2 percent by the conclusion of this FY.
Al-Saeed indicated that the Russian-Ukrainian invasion has caused sharp fluctuations in global trade. She noted that global commerce has seen a decline in the goods and services growth rates, falling to 5 percent in 2022 from 10.1 percent in 2021.
She cited the Economist newspaper’s estimate that the OECD countries’ inflation rate was around 7.7 percent, the fastest rate of increase in prices in the last three decades, as well as the IMF’s forecast that inflation in the MENA region will reach in 2022 14 percent of global GDP.
Al-Saeed added that in the three months following the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian crisis, global energy, and food prices jumped by 17 percent, wheat by 48 percent, natural gas by 89 percent, and corn by 15 percent.
In a related context, the minister pointed to the exacerbated burden of global indebtedness, noting that global debt increased by 34 percent within one year to reach $303 trillion in 2021, up from $305 trillion late last March.
All economic activities in Egypt improved noticeably during the first nine months of the FY, according to Al-Saeed, with restaurants and hotels leading the way with a 62.8 percent growth, followed by communications (16.4 percent), the Suez Canal (13 percent), manufacturing (10.3 percent), and construction and building (8.2 percent).
Moreover, the minister observed that unemployment rates declined to 7.2 percent in Q3 of FY 2021/22, compared to 7.4 percent in Q3 of the previous FY.
