Egypt expects over 4% growth

DAVOS: Egypt can expect economic growth “easily north of 4 percent” in fiscal year 2014-15, which ends in June, boosted by rising confidence and a windfall from lower oil prices, its finance minister said on Friday.
Hani Dimian also told Reuters in an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos that the budget deficit for this year would fall to between 10 and 10.5 percent of gross domestic product, down from 12.5 to 12.6 percent in 2013-14.
“It’s a bit early to give an exact number for growth rates because we’ve only seen first quarter figures. But the signals for Q2 are also positive. That is why ... we’re revising our growth rate from 3.8 percent, which was published in March 2014, and we're going to be easily north of 4 percent,” Dimian said.
“If you look at the boosters of that growth, you find that manufacturing is coming back, telecommunication and construction and partially early signs of the return of tourism,” he said.
President Abdel Fattah El-Sissi addressed the Davos forum on Thursday, appealing to global investors to return to Egypt as he consolidates stability.
Dimian said market confidence was gradually returning, as evidenced by the falling costs of insuring Egyptian debt against default and a recent credit rating upgrade to B+ from B- with a positive outlook by Fitch Ratings.
He declined comment on this week’s fall in the official exchange rate of the Egyptian pound, bringing it closer to the black market rate, saying that was for the central bank to manage.
Egypt is holding a major international investors’ conference in mid-March to seek support for a range of long-term projects from the construction of a second Suez Canal parallel to the existing water, to industrial and agricultural projects.