Egypt on course to beat 7 percent growth: minister

By Dominic Evans

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - Egypt is on course to beat last year's 7.1 percent economic growth despite indications of an international slowdown, Finance Minister Youssef Boutros-Ghali said.

Boutros-Ghali also told Reuters on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum that Egypt plans to issue a eurobond around mid-year, probably of 5 billion Egyptian pounds with a 10-year maturity.

"I not only plan to match (last year's growth), I plan to exceed it," he said. "With the setback in the world economy and all this talk about recession and stagnation we may not be able to do 7.5 percent -- but we will do more than 7 percent."

Growth in the last two fiscal years ending in June has reached 6.8 percent and 7.1 percent, up from 2 or 3 percent in the years before that, Boutros-Ghali said.

He predicted investment from oil-producing Gulf Arab states would remain strong, and said there was no sign yet of a slowdown of sales to Egypt's main export markets in Europe.

"The Gulf investments are no longer into real estate, they go into factories, into construction, into hotels," he said.

Boutros-Ghali said Egypt was in the process of registering with the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission and with Euroclear to facilitate bond issues.

"What we intended was to start (the SEC) registration process this month ... And do also similar registration in Euroclear so we access the European market," he said.