.jpg)
Mohamed Farid, EGX chairman, participated in a seminar at Faculty of Economics and Political Science on Monday titled "The Double Deficit and its Impact on Financial Markets, from Emerging Markets to Egypt".
The Seminar was organized and moderated by Dr. Alia Al-Mahdi, former Dean of the Faculty, in the presence of a group of economics professors such as Dr. Najwa Samak, Dr. Heba Nassar, Dr. Mona ElBaradei, Dr. Najla El Ahwany, Dr. Sameha Fawzi, Dr. Sherine El-Shawarby, Dr. Adelah Ragab and Dr. Yasmine Fouad.
Farid said, "The Egyptian government is implementing an integrated, unprecedented reforms at all levels financially, monetary and legally to modify the economic pattern. This has already reflected on the stability of macroeconomic indicators and the achieved high growth rates”.
Farid added that the core of the current crisis of the emerging economies is the budget deficit, which pressures the current deficit balance leading to debt accumulation". The presence of a budget deficit that is exceeding the actual economic growth is a challenge that needs to be promptly solved in order to build financial margins to be spent on the fundamental services that raise quality of living of the Egyptians such as education, health, housing, water and energy.
.EGX Chairman stated that the situation in emerging markets is difficult; yet, what distinguishes Egypt is early start in the reform process, not only due to the gallant economic reforms that have assisted in stabilizing the currency market and eliminating of the black market, building foreign reserves, improving tourism figures, and developing the foreign direct investment and exports, but also due to the legislative amendments which have improved the business environment such as the new investment law, the bankruptcy law, microfinance, and the new energy tariff. All this have paved the way for the growth in the investment rates.
In addition to the infrastructure reforms, the most important of which is the electricity projects, which led to the significant improvement of Egypt’s ranking as a result of the huge investments that led to the resolving of the energy crisis in Egypt.
During the seminar, Farid said that EGX was not isolated from the economic reform process. The net purchases of non-Egyptians and Arab investors in equities and bonds since November 2016 surged to EGP 23.7 billion compared to EGP 1.5 billion during the same comparable period, in addition to their significant participation in the IPOs.
Farid also presented EGX efforts to raise the financial culture awareness levels as well as highlight EGX’s important role in financing growth and development and improving people's conditions.
Farid continued, "Trading on the stock exchange is not for the rich, wealthy and professionals only. It is a long-term saving and investment pool. Citizens can save via the stock exchange by buying ETFs, which save their efforts from choosing the right securities.
He continued, "The biggest challenge facing the capital market’s growth is the weak financial awareness. This impacts negatively on the number of listed companies, the modest trading volume and the low number of investor".
Farid finalized by saying, "We always work on diversifying the investments’ options for all investors’ categories by introducing and activating more tools and financial products to enhance trading and liquidity".
