Egypt’s freshly-approved final budget for the year starting 1 July projects spending of E£975bn ($111bn at the latest rate of $1= E£8.78 following the latest devaluation in March), revenue of E£670bn ($76bn) and a resulting deficit of E£319bn ($36bn, see table).
The deficit in the 2016-17 budget is projected at 9.8% of GDP, less than the actual 11.2% recorded in the first 11 months of 2015-16. However this fall in the deficit is based on a whopping 51% real-terms revenue increase versus the first 11 months of 2015-16 on a pro-rata basis. The 2015-16 budget projected a deficit of 8.9% based on revenue of E£622bn – some 60% higher than the likely final revenue figure (see table). (CONTINUED - 455 WORDS)
