We anticipate that private sector will make up more than 70% of Egypt's economy: Maait

Minister of Finance, Mohamed Maait, confirmed that Egypt is supporting the private sector with full force to lead the Egyptian economy and occupy more 65 to 70% of the size of the market.  

Egypt is currently placing focus on raising the rates of local production and export, pointing out that the government set a limit for the state’s public investments at EGP one trillion in the next fiscal year. This is to leave space for the private sector in line with the government’s offerings program to grow, achieve economic growth, and provide a million job opportunities annually.

Maait elaborated that allowing the private sector to lead in the economy is to Egypt’s benefit as almost 1 million young people come to the Egyptian labor market looking for jobs every year and the government cannot create can only offer around 100,000 new jobs.

“So an economy led by the private sector can create 900,000 jobs or even more but we have to give them the opportunity,” the finance minister said.

This was during the “Governor Talks – Egypt: Lessons in Restoring Macroeconomic Stability” with the Director of the Middle East and Central Asia Department at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Jihad Azour, at the IMF spring meetings.

Maait stressed his 3 main priorities currently: inflation to come down in coordination with the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) with a target of 7% (±2), interest rates to drop, and to invest more in human development.

“I have to inject more [investments] for human development. I need to put more money into health, education, and supporting the economic sectors to bring the growth rate back, we are expecting to finish this financial year with a real growth rate of 2.8, which is not suitable for Egypt. We need to be able to grow at 6 to 7%,” Maait said during the talk.