29/03/1997
Dr. Mohamed Ahmed el-Baz submitted a working paper entitled “Financial Policies for Bringing about Anticipated Transformation”. The paper revolved around several axes, namely the general framework of the development plan for FY 1996/97, social and economic dimensions within the framework of the financial policies of the budget for 96/97 and proposed policies and mechanisms in the transformation stage. The paper raised an important question: Where the plan’s figures already achieved and to what extent?(Available in Arabic – German in PDF )
The paper revealed that Egyptian financial policies witnessed radical changes during the 20th century. Although each of these financial policies can be justified through time and environmental changes that accompanied it and formed its methods and tendencies, they created clear negative impacts on production and investments during some periods of Egypt’s economic history. Economic reform achieved a financial discipline in the financial and executive policies, which had a great impact on restoring the balance of the Egyptian economy. The paper stressed that such a restored balance resulted in a decline in budget deficit till it reached safe limits, less than 1 percent of the GDP. Controlling and rationalizing public spending and the tangible developments witnessed in the tax system and ways and methods of preparing the state’s general budget were also among these results. The question here is: Are these developments witnessed in the Egyptian financial policies sufficient to bring about the anticipated transformation and meet the aspirations of the Egyptian economy in the next century? This was the core of the paper.