The Egyptian economy grew 7.2 percent in the 2007/8 financial year which ended in June, Finance Minister Youssef Boutros-Ghali said on Sunday. The minister gave the number to Reuters in response to a query by text message. He gave no further details.
The Egyptian government has said gross domestic product grew at an annualised rate of 7.4 percent in the first nine months of the year. The figure for the whole year indicates that growth slowed to an annualised 6.6 percent in the April-June quarter.
However, the full-year performance was slightly better than the government's forecast of growth at a fraction over 7 percent. Economists polled by Reuters have predicted that the rate of growth of the Egyptian economy will fall to between 4.8 and 6.8 percent in the financial year which began in July as high inflation hits private consumption.
The fastest-growing sectors of the economy in the last four years of high growth have been tourism, construction, Suez Canal revenues and oil and gas.