Finance Minister Mohamed Maait said that encouraging participatory budgeting aims at entrenching citizen participation in the state's financial policy-making process and enhancing the principles of transparency and governance.

He made the remarks on Saturday during a ceremony on launching the participatory budgeting process in Fayyoum governorate.

He said the ministry is keen on expanding the participatory budgeting initiative in various governorates in collaboration with the bodies concerned.

He said the ministry is keen as well on getting citizens to be involved in mapping out the budget, highlighting the importance of sensitizing people on the state plans and financial policies.

He noted that the fiscal year which ended in June 2022 recorded the highest growth rate since 2008 standing at 6.6 percent of GDP.

An initial surplus was realized for the fifth year in a row at EGP 100 billion, representing 1.3 percent of the GDP, he said.

He noted that Egypt is one of the world’s few emerging economies to achieve initial surplus in the 2021-2022 fiscal year.

The debt-to-GDP ratio plunged from 103 percent in June 2017 to 87.2 percent in June 2022, he said. Egypt seeks to further reduce it to 75 percent by 2026, he added.

The Egyptian economy volume tripled over the past six years, according to him. 

MENA