A member of the Board of Directors of the International Monetary Fund, Mahmoud Mohieldin, has criticised Egypt’s excessive borrowing to face the repercussions of the coronavirus. He added in press statements, “Countries should not depend too much on the external market to finance development needs… and other sources of financing for development should never be neglected, especially raising domestic savings rates.” He continued, “For this, it is worth assessing a local framework for integrated financing, in which borrowing is the last resort, and identifying the financing gap at the national level.”

Egypt’s external debt rose at the end of last June by 14.8 per cent on an annual basis, to $123.5 billion, compared to $108.7 billion at the end of June of last year. Last month, the Central Bank of Egypt data showed an increase in external debt during the last quarter of the past fiscal year, by 12.2 per cent. Long-term debts recorded EGP 112.6 billion, or 91 per cent of the total external debt, while short-term debts fell to less than nine per cent.