Egypt expects $12.58 billion in additional revenue for 2015/16

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt aims to generate around 98.5 billion Egyptian pounds ($12.58 billion) of additional revenue this financial year by launching economic legislation and financial reforms, Finance Minister Hany Kadry Dimian said on Tuesday. Egypt in July projected revenue for the financial year 2015/16 of 622.2 billion pounds. It also said it expected a budget deficit of 8.9 percent of gross domestic product. Speaking at a conference in Cairo, Dimian said that the implementation of a long awaited value-added tax (VAT) by the end of 2015 would help generate the biggest bulk of the additional revenue, 31 billion pounds. He also said a re-examination of existing service fees that had been implemented for many years would raise an additional 6.5 billion pounds. Other chunks of extra revenue would include 3 billion pounds from steel licenses, 2.8 billion pounds from issuing telecom licenses and 12.5 billion from agricultural land settlement. ($1 = 7.8300 Egyptian pounds)