Egypt: growth surpasses expectations and debts around 30 billion

The Egyptian prime Minister Atef Obeid said yesterday that economic growth rate reached 4.2 percent during the first quarter of the current year. A rate which surpasses expectations stated in the state budget.

At the inauguration of an annual conference organized by "Economists" group and attended by directors of Egyptian and multi national companies, Obeid said: the economic performance was much better than the expected," recalling that expectations originally indicated that growth rate will be exceed 2.5 % while the International Monetary Fund expected in September 2003 that growth rate in Egypt will be 2.8 % in 2003 and 3% in 2004.

Meantime, the Egyptian central Bank said that Egypt's foreign debts reached 29.5 billion dollars by the end of 2003 representing an increase of 700 million over the figures of 2003. This was a result of " a decrease in the dollar exchange rate for other currencies.