El-Said: Egypt's Economy Grows 1.35% in H1 of FY 2020/21

Hala El-Said, Minister of Planning and Economic Development said that the Egyptian economy was able to maintain a positive growth rate of 2% during the second quarter of the current fiscal year 2020/21, recording about 1.35% in the first half.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, El-Said said that the average growth rate of the Egyptian economy during the first half of the current fiscal year amounted to about 1.35% compared to 5.6% , year-on-year.

She emphasized that expectations indicate that the growth rate will continue to rise during Q3 and Q4 of FY 2020/21, reaching about 2.8% and 5.3%, respectively.

She added that several sectors achieved positive growth during the first half, such as the transport, storage, agriculture, health, and education, in contrast to others, who were most affected by the crisis, including tourism, manufacturing and the Suez Canal.

She pointed out that the global economic recession led to a decline in international trade patterns accompanied by travel restrictions applied in more than 100 countries, which negatively affected the industrial, export and tourism sectors alike.

She also pointed out that the pandemic pushed global trade to decline by 9%, the global economy to shrink by 3.5%, an oil prices to drop severely.

The Suez Canal, however, has implemented a package of attractive and flexible incentives related to policies, marketing and pricing, which helped it attract new investment, containing the downturn in activity, and maintaining a level of revenues.

Unemployment rate also continued to decline to 7.2% during Q2 2020/21, after declining to 7.3% in Q1, as a result of the partial return to economic activity with the general tendency to ease the restrictions of closure, with the improvement of work-intensive activities such as wholesale and retail trade and agriculture.