The International Monetary Fund (IMF) called on the Egyptian authorities to take additional structural reforms to accelerate its GDP growth and achieve the target of 6% by end of the current fiscal year 2019/20 and beyond 7% in the years to come, Jihad Azour, Director for the Middle East and Central Asia Department at the IMF, told Daily News Egypt.

This came during the Middle East and Central Asia Department online press conference on Friday, on the sidelines of the IMF and World Bank’s 2019 annual meetings.

The future structural reforms should aim at promoting growth through creating jobs, boosting private sector participation in the economy and strengthening governance, Azour explained.

“We should be very caution over the current years to accomplish the GDP targeted growth on the medium term and accelerate the growth and benefit from the current investment opportunities,” he added, assuring that Egypt is ready to attract more FDIs in the future specially after several infrastructure projects were implemented.

The IMF supported Egypt’s macroeconomic programme for 3 years to secure the social protection for the most vulnerable categories in the society, Azour mentioned. asserting the fifth and final review of the Egyptian economy clarified that the authorities achieved a tangible progress in the country’s financial position.

The inflation is getting down faster than expected that allowed the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) to cut interest rates several times this year, he noted.
Additionally, Azour mentioned that the Lebanese authorities need to rebuild the trust with the citizens, deal with the weakness points and improve the governmental revenues to boost the GDP growth specially that GDP didn’t properly grow in the past years.