Reforms to bear fruit, interest rates too high -YBG

Rare interview with YBG: Egypt finally took the “bitter medication” of economic reform and it will bear fruit in time, former Finance Minister Youssef Boutros Ghali told Al Shorouk on the sidelines of the IMF and World Bank fall meetings. Egypt’s only solution is to be able to reach economic growth rates of 5% and over in order to increase employment opportunity, he says. He is also not concerned by the levels of public debt, but says the government’s budget needs to be tightened. YBG also believes the current interest rate environment to be too high and not conducive to investment. The rate need to be lowered to stimulate credit demand, he says. Looking back to his tenure in government, he said a problem that often faced the government was the long time it took former President Hosni Mubarak to approve decisions, and this made the future reform bill costlier.