President "El Sisi" stressed the importance of economic reform program

Cairo – Eco – Fady Labib : President Abdel Fattah El Sisi met on Sunday with Prime Minister Moustafa Madbouly and Governor of the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE), Tarek Amer ...

President El Sisi stressed the importance of committing to the implementation of the comprehensive economic reform program and to the periodic evaluation of the measures undertaken within this framework to ensure the achievement of the financial and economic objectives targeted. This also aims to maintain the continuous improvement of the economic indicators and increase the confidence of the international community in the Egyptian economy's ability to grow.

The President emphasized the need to continue to undertake all measures necessary to implement the structural reforms which aim to maintain monetary and banking stability. President El Sisi also asserted the importance of coordination among all relevant state apparatuses to work to reduce public debt and curb inflation.

The meeting discussed the most important developments in the monetary reform program and the flow of foreign exchange into Egypt which reached around 163.5 billion dollars during the past three years. This is in addition to the increase in Egyptian banks' resources from 8.3 billion dollars to 88.5 billion dollars since the decision to float the currency, despite the negative repercussion of the emerging markets' events in the world. The CBE Governor reviewed the status of the balance of payment account during the first three months of the fiscal year 2018-2019, (July-September), which included a surplus of around 1.5 billion dollars. This is mainly due to an increase in the services revenue that reached about 11.4 billion dollars compared to 9.8 billion dollars during the same period last year, in addition to an increase of around 1.1 billion dollars in petroleum exports.

Mr. Amer offered an overview of the developments pertinent to the establishment of a banknote plant in the new administrative capital, in addition to expectations of international capital markets during the New Year. He also discussed developments of the IMF economic reform program in Egypt, in light of the recent visit to Cairo by the fund's experts, which yielded positive results. The experts lauded the government's strong commitment to implementing the targeted reform measures according to the designated time-frame, whereby it is expected that Egypt will receive the fifth tranche worth, 2 billion US dollars, of the IMF loan in January 2019.