The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has maintained its projections for Egypt’s real GDP growth in 2022 at 5.9 percent, while revising it down to 4.8 percent in 2023, said Petya Koeva Brooks the Deputy Director of the Research Department at the IMF.
Brooks made her statements in response to a question from Ahram Online on the IMF’s expectations for the Egyptian economy during a virtual press briefing held on Tuesday for the release the fund’s update to its World Economic Outlook report.
Yet, Brooks said that the IMF revised down its projections for real GDP growth in 2023 to 4.8 percent due to the negative repercussions of the war in Ukraine that severely hit the country’s tourism sector as well as the food prices hikes.
In April, the fund upgraded its projections for Egypt’s real GDP growth in 2022 by 0.3 percent to 5.9 percent, up from 5.6 percent expected in January, before slowing down to five percent in 2023, which were the highest among oil importer countries across the Middle East region.
As for Egypt’s inflation, Brooks said that the IMF expected it to continue to accelerate, reaching 8.7 percent in 2022 and 14 percent in 2023.
According to the latest figures announced by the Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS), Egypt’s inflation decelerated to 13.2 percent in June, down from 13.5 percent in May, slowing for the first time in seven months.
Speaking about the anticipated loan deal with Egypt, Brooks noted that the IMF’s mission completed talks with Egyptian authorities in July and the deal is awaiting approval from the fund’s board of directors.
The anticipated loan is expected to be greenlit under the IMF’s Extended Fund Facility, which is the same programme Egypt obtained its $12 billion loan to execute its economic reform programme (November 2016-July 2019).
The programme is projected to take four years with an expected loan amount of $6 billion up to $10 billion according to the country’s quota.
