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However, Egypt’s debt vulnerability has increased as a result of the pandemic, with the Jubilee debt campaign predicting a debt crisis in 2020. The public debt to GDP ratio is forecast to rise to 118% in 2020 due to urgent financing needs, surpassing its 2017 peak and reversing the efforts made to rein in public debt before the pandemic. The fiscal deficit, a longstanding challenge facing the Egyptian economy, is also expected to worsen, climbing to 8.7% of GDP. In addition to worsening the balance of payments position, a wider deficit could increase vulnerability by weakening Egypt’s capacity to respond to economic shocks. Meanwhile, Egypt spends significant amounts servicing its growing debt stocks; debt service payments are equivalent to 22% of government expenditure, the third highest rate amongst the countries analysed. For comparison, in 2017, Egypt only spent 5.4% of each expenditure on healthcare, representing a potentially high opportunity cost IF the projects being funded by loans are not helping raise citizen’s standards of living or generating a return.

This report estimates Egypt is only fulfilling 13% of total tax potential, a figure which has been steadily increasing over the past few years but still remains low. To ensure pre-pandemic efforts to plug this gap are not wasted, the IMF has affirmed its support for the continuation of Egypt’s policy changes through SBA financing while the government is strengthening domestic resource mobilization. Assuming global economic recovery and effective policy implementation, the Egyptian economy is expected to grow by 2.1% in 2021.