Egypt’s strong reforms on the fiscal and energy fronts can help its growth rate reach 5.5 percent in FY 2019/2020, according to the World Bank (WB) annual report.
The bank’s projection for Egypt came in Sync with the Egyptian government’s own announced target of 5.6 percent growth for this year.
The WB explained that it disbursed $62.3 billion in 2018 in loans, grants, equity investments, and guarantees to partner countries and private businesses in developing countries.
Sub-Saharan Africa took the lion’s share of these expenditures with $18.4 billion, while the Middle East came in second with $8.2 billion.
For the Middle East and North Africa, the report mentioned that growth in the region is anticipated to be a modest 1.5 percent in 2019, down from 1.6 percent in 2018, largely due to weaker global growth and global financial market volatility.
Real per capita growth across the region will be 0.1 percent, improving slightly on 2018’s decline of 0.2 percent.
The World Bank, according to the report, approved $5.5 billion in lending to the region over 19 operations in fiscal 2019, including $4.9 billion in International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) loans and $611 million in International Development Association (IDA) commitments.
Revenue from Reimbursable Advisory Services agreements, including with countries from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), was around $56 million.
Ahram Online
14/10/2019
