Minister of Finance: Our strategic goal.. Expanding the economic, productive and tax base for the benefit of citizens, investors and the country
Ahmed Kajuk, Minister of Finance, stressed that our strategic goal is to expand the economic, productive and tax base for the benefit of citizens, investors and the country, explaining that we are working to enhance the competitiveness of our economy and promote commodity and service export rates to drive growth and increase the country's resources.
He said, at the salon of the National Planning Institute,: "We have an ambitious vision for the development of local management resources, and we aim to make the fruits of this trend feel our people in the governorates," pointing out that we aim to develop tax and non-tax revenues without additional burdens from promising economic and productive sectors capable of growth.
He added that the economic situation is improving, and the indicators are heading for the better, and we are making every effort to alleviate the burdens, improve and simplify services, and we still have many goals within a coherent and integrated economic path, and what has been achieved encourages us to complete what we have started.
He pointed out that the private sector is able to transform Egypt into a regional center for production and export, which will drive growth and enhance the state's resources, explaining that the private sector has proven its rapid response to economic reforms and raised its investments by 73% during the past year, and the industry, information technology and tourism sectors witnessed strong growth in the last fiscal year as well.
He stressed that tax revenues increased by 36% during the past year without adding any burdens to the business community, pointing out that the new budget will see an increase in health and education allocations and cash support programs that are most targeted for the first categories in care, and we continue our financial policies that support economic activity without neglecting financial discipline, and we target a greater role and contribution to the private sector to achieve the priorities and targets of fiscal policy for the benefit of the economy and people, and we also target better service to investors and citizens based on modern technology and promote fair competition.
The minister said that the first package of tax facilities proved the validity of the path of trust and partnership in stimulating voluntary compliance, and that our partners submitted 612,000 new and rate declarations and voluntarily revealed an additional economic activity of two trillion pounds and paid additional taxes of 78 billion pounds, and we also received 400,000 applications to close old files and 127 thousand benefited from the simplified and integrated tax system so far.
He added that we look forward in the second package to the approval of greater facilitations and incentives for our committed funding partners, pointing out that there are other packages soon in customs and real estate taxes. To ease the burdens, simplify procedures and facilitate investors and citizens.
Kjok said, "I'm sure everyone. Debt reduction is the top of the state's priorities. We are working to improve all indicators strongly and quickly, and that the ratio of budget device debt to GDP fell from 96% to 84% in two years, and the financial discipline path can contribute to reducing this ratio to 80% by the end of next June, and the external debt of budget devices fell by about $4 billion within two years and continues on this path: we pay more than we borrow.
He stressed that we aim to deal strongly and influentially as well to reduce the burdens of debt service to provide additional resources aimed at improving people's lives, explaining that reducing the size and debt burdens of budget devices makes us more able to increase spending on health, education, protection and support the economy.
Dr. said Ashraf Al-Arabi, President of the National Planning Institute, said that we are optimistic about the economic and financial policies in Egypt, and that the path of motivation and facilitation is well received by the business community and economists, pointing out that it is important to accelerate the pace of work on the targets of Egypt's 2030 strategy, and reduce the gaps in the coming years.