Kouchouk gives us the rundown on last year’s most important economic indicators: Over the last fiscal year, Egypt saw its budget deficit narrow and its primary surplus increase, despite the regional instability stemming from the war on Gaza, Finance Minister Ahmed Kouchouk said yesterday.

#1- Budget deficit: Egypt’s budget deficit narrowed to EGP 505 bn during the fiscal year that ended on 30 June, down 17% from the EGP 610 bn recorded last year.

Even better than expected: The Finance Ministry, in its draft draft state budget for the currentfiscal year (pdf) released in April, had forecasted the budget deficit for the year coming at EGP 555 bn — or 4% of GDP.

#2- Primary surplus: The country recorded a primary surplus of EGP 857 bn during the fiscal year 2023-2024, compared to EGP 164 bn the year before.

#3- Revenues were up 59.3% y-o-y in FY 2023-24, Kouchouk said, without providing an exact figure.

#4- More spending: The government’s spending was up 37.4% y-o-y during the year — education spending came in 11% higher than the figure earmarked in the budget to sit at EGP 256 bn and health spending came in at EGP 180 bn for the year, 22% higher than planned.

The news got attention from: Reuters and Xinhua.

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