Business today-

The amendments to the Unified Budget Act have been formally approved by President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, according to the decree published in the Official Gazette yesterday.

In this regard, Minister of Finance, Mohamed Maait, said that the recent changes made to the Unified Public Finance Law offer legislative tools that allow Egypt to effectively manage deficit and debt levels in relation to the gross domestic product.

Under these amendments, the official measures of the state's public finances will be determined based on the revenues and expenditures of the "general government" budget, which now includes the budgets of all public economic entities, state administrative agencies, and localities.

This expansion brings the total expenditures of the general government to EGP 6.6 trillion, while its revenues amount to EGP 5.3 trillion for the fiscal year 2024/2025, Maait added.

These amendments, which received the approval from Members of Parliament in the previous month, will involve merging the budgets of all 59 economic entities within the state budget itself.

The Minister explained that the law will help Egypt to reduce the debt and its burdens for all general government entities, so that the debt-to-domestic product ratio reaches 80% in June 2027.

The unified public finance law will lead to recording a primary surplus of more than 3.5% of GDP, and reducing the total deficit In the medium term to 6%, the minister added.

The Minister announced that there will be a maximum limit of EGP 1 trillion for the state's total investments in all its bodies and entities during the next fiscal year, 2024/2025.