Cairo is drawing up a roadmap for administrative reforms aimed at improving efficiency in government departments and the civil service, Minister of Planning Ashraf al-‘Arabi said this week. The government says this roadmap will help boost the country’s economic growth rate to around 3.2% for the current 2014-15 fiscal year, which began on 1 July.

Egypt’s growth rate has been stuck at around 2% for the past three years (see graph, MEES 4 July) – that is to say since the Arab Spring ‘Revolution’ of early 2011. Without the two economic stimulus packages of $4.3bn and $4.9bn introduced by the interim government last year, growth would have been negative by June 2014 (MEES, 14 February). (CONTINUED - 366 WORDS)