Can Islamic finance help close Egypt’s budget shortfall?
Members of parliament are working on creative ways to cut Egypt’s ever-growing budget deficit.
CAIRO — Some members of the Egyptian parliament want to cut the general budget deficit by using Islamic finance innovatively to raise funds.
Ahmed Khalid, head of the Salafist Nour Party parliamentary bloc, said June 26 that his party will present a draft bill to establish a national council to eliminate the public debt using Islamic finance.
Khalid criticized the current thinking behind budget preparation, noting that in addition to a deficit of 350 billion Egyptian pounds ($39.4 billion), the state owes debt service payments of roughly 250 billion pounds. Revenues account for 632 billion pounds, while expenditures now exceed 1 trillion pounds.
Parliamentarian and Nour Party spokesman Ahmed Saleh told Al-Monitor the proposal is in its final draft and will be raised when parliament reconvenes after its end-of-Ramadan recess.
