Cairo – Mubasher: The Egyptian government is planning to reduce the government debt to GDP ratio to reach 77.5% by the end of June 2022, which will decrease the country’s debt service, according to a statement released on Friday by the Ministry of Finance (MoF).

The MoF noted that the FY21/22 will see the decline of the government debt-to-GDP ratio to less than its level in 2011.

The reduction in the North African country’s debt will enable its government to allocate more funds to the education and the health sectors, the MoF said.

The government is working on achieving a minimum average GDP growth of 6%, along with 2% sustainable primary annual surplus until the fiscal year 2021-2022, the ministry revealed.

Egypt is planning to resort more to long-term financing instruments through the domestic market while decreasing its dependency on short term loans.

On Thursday, the World Bank announced in a recent report that Egypt’s external debt rose by 20.4% year-on-year to $106.2 billion during the first quarter of 2019 from $88.16 billion.