Egypt’s new prime minister, appointed in the summer, said on Sunday his government was finalizing a package of economic reforms to boost tax revenue and cut consumer subsidies and that he would present a draft to the president next week.
Hisham Qandil told Reuters in an interview the government planned to direct energy subsidies more effectively, issuing coupons or smart cards to the poor for butane cooking gas by mid-October and cutting subsidies on 95-octane gasoline in coming months.
“We want to increase our revenue. To do so we need to look at our taxation system so it covers more people, not necessarily that we tax more. But it would be better to tax more people,” he said. “We’ll try to get them into the formal economy, and we will do that very soon.”
Qandil said he expects Egypt’s economy to grow by 3-4 percent in the financial year 2012/13 and could hit the government’s target of 4-4.5 percent if its goals for public and private investment flows were achieved.
He also said that the government aimed to cut the budget deficit, now running at about 8 percent of gross domestic product, by 1 percentage point in two years, although he said that target was “dynamic.”