Egypt’s foreign and internal debt services have accumulated over the past decades and now exceed LE130 billion, presidential spokesperson Yasser Ali said Saturday.
Ali said in a tweet that settling debts and debt services, including interest, consumes 25 percent of public expenditure annually.
“A fast look at the state budget on 1 June revealed that total revenues could not pass LE393 billion, while expenses stood at LE533 billion,” Ali said. “Salaries for government administrative employees make up LE136 billion, or 25 percent of the expenses, while spending on subsidization and pensions amounts to LE146 billion, or 27 percent of the total spending.”
Egypt has been struggling to reinvigorate its flailing economy amid accumulated debts and soaring economic demands since the revolution that ousted former President Hosni Mubarak in February 2011.
Earlier this month, Finance Minister Momtaz al-Saeed told the Shura Council that public debt had swelled.
Lionel Johns, director of the US Chamber of Commerce in Washington DC, had told Al-Masry Al-Youm that US investors were lobbying for the United States government to drop US$3.2 billion in debt that Egypt owes Washington, and for the EU to drop another debt of $7 billion to the Paris Club.
