Egypt's finance minister said on Wednesday the total budget deficit for the fiscal year that ended in June was 252 billion Egyptian pounds ($35.2 billion), accounting for 12.5 to 12.6 percent of GDP, state news agency MENA reported.
Hany Dimian told a news conference that the government had targeted the deficit falling to just 9 percent of GDP, "but it rose (due) to the lack of implementation of procedures that were supposed to be applied in the last year".
Egypt announced deep cuts in energy subsidies in its budget for the 2014/15 fiscal year on June 30, the last day of the 2013/14 fiscal year, in an attempt to reduce the deficit after three years of political turmoil that hit the economy hard.
