CAIRO, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Egypt aims to reduce the public debt to 70 percent of the GDP in four years, Finance Minister Mohamed Maait said Wednesday.
Maait's remarks came during his meeting with members of the French Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Egypt, where he pledged that the Egyptian government will not increase taxes or impose new ones, according to a statement from the Egyptian Ministry of Finance.
The finance minister said in August that the government aims to reduce its public debt to 92 percent of GDP in the budget of the current fiscal year 2018-2019.
Egypt's government debt totalled 108 percent of the GDP in the fiscal year 2016-2017, according to a statement from former Finance Minister Amr el-Garhy in May, where he said the government aims to reduce it to 80 percent of GDP by 2020.
The lowest ratio of Egypt's public debt to GDP was 73.3 percent in 2009.
Earlier in September, Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said the country's foreign debt rose 17.2 percent to 92.64 billion U.S. dollars by the end of June, compared with 79.02 billion dollars last year.
Egypt is implementing an economic reform program which started with floatation of local currency in late 2016 to deal with dollar shortage, reduce budget deficit and boost the economy which has been in recession after years of political instability.
The Egyptian reform program is being supported by a 12-billion-dollar loan from the International Monetary Fund, two thirds of which has been delivered to the most populous Arab state.
