Egypt Reports 5.4% Growth in Five Years

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi said that the country’s economic growth rate rose from 2% to 5.4% over the past five years, with plans to reach 7% in a few years to come, Xinhua reported. Sisi’s remarks came in a televised statement marking the fifth anniversary of the ‘June 30 Revolution’, a popular uprising in mid-2013 that prompted the army, led by Sisi then, to overthrow and detain former  president Mohamed Morsi after barely one year in office. The Egyptian president described the uprising as “an eternal day in Egypt’s history,” stressing that it changed the nation’s direction from evil and terrorism to security, peace and development. “Egypt’s foreign currency reserves rose from about $15 billion in 2013 to $44 billion at present, the highest ever in Egypt’s history,” Sisi said. The country’s foreign debt rose from about $45 billion in 2013 to $82.9 billion by the end of 2017, according to the Central Bank of Egypt.