During the press conference held at International Monetary Fund (IMF) headquarters in Washington, Jihad Azour Director of the Middle East and Central Asia Department, explained that Egypt is working hard to stimulate economic growth, raise employment rates, and support youth projects in the labor market. Azour added that women got 70% of social protection programs.
Azour said the recent period has witnessed a shift from the non-targeted support of some commodities to targeted support for those who need it. He said that the lower income groups have benefited from the economic reform program especially, the beneficiaries of ”Takaful and Dignity Program”.
Jihad Azour
He explained that the performance indicators of the Egyptian economy improved significantly in recent years, and the country has achieved GDP growth of 5.5% over last two years.
In addition he confirmed that the improvement in inflation rates fell significantly over 30% to 12% and 14% currently, as well as the unemployment levels declined from 12% to 9%.
The programs provided the minimum social protection for individuals and the middle class got more jobs which were provided by the private sector, according to dynamics of the labor market.
IMF released its review of Egypt’s program
Also, the director explained that Egypt has enormous potential of young people in different areas especially, in the technological infrastructure field, it supports the green economy and pays a greater sense of economic stability as well continuing in implementing reforms.
He stressed that the IMF mission will visit Egypt on June, to carry out the final review of the economic reform program, followed by the disbursement of the last tranche of the IMF loan worth 12 billion dollars, pointing out that the pound exchange rate is currently under the supply and demand forces in the market.
