Impact of COVID-19 on projected real GDP growth in Egypt 2020-2021

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is going to have repercussions on most of the countries worldwide, as is the case for Egypt as well. Without COVID-19, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was estimated to grow by 5.8 percent and six percent in 2020 and 2021 respectively. With the assumption that the pandemic subsided in July 2020, it was projected that the real GDP is going to grow by 2.2 percent in 2020 before rebounding to a growth rate of 2.7 percent in 2021. With the worst case scenario assumption, that the pandemic persist to December 2020, it is estimated that the GDP growth would be a mere 0.8 percent in 2020 before picking up in 2021 to a growth rate of 2.1 percent.

With regards to Egyptian cumulative coronavirus cases, Egypt is the second most hit country in the continent with 98,727 cases as of August 30th 2020. Tourism receipts are believed to be drastically affected, along with remittances.