Egypt’s Debt: Historical Origins and Persistent Challenges
November 2024 2024-12-11 15:54Authors
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Egypt's Debt: Historical Origins and Persistent Challenges
Abstract
| Egypt’s debt has been a cause and outcome of many underlying challenges. Despite adopting various economic systems and ideologies, Egypt’s debt problem has persisted across all implemented development models, interestingly tied to the country’s economic and political history. Beyond the standard linear measures, Egypt’s debt profile has constantly remained fragile, even during eras when the debt-to-GDP ratio appeared adequate; raising two fundamental questions: what has Egypt’s debt financed and how has it been serviced? The answers reveal that – over history – Egypt’s debt problem has been an outcome of debt-development models, debt servicing strategies, political dominance, external dependency, weak monetary-fiscal management, inadequate accounting systems and weak institutions. External forces, unfair borrowing terms and subsequent global crises have acted as accelerators, making the debt problem increasingly problematic and severe. New debt strategies need to be aware of the global debt and financial architecture, and innovations, alongside the evolving global environment. Meanwhile, these strategies ought to seriously address the longstanding and fundamental debt causes and challenges inherent in Egypt’s macroeconomic system. |
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