Egypt’s unemployment rate dropped to 11.8 percent in 2017 from 12.5 percent the year before, state statistics agency CAPMAS said on Monday. President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has said he will cut unemployment to 10 percent over the next few years, a target that will require higher levels of economic growth. Egypt aims to boost revenues from cigarette and tobacco tax by about 7.072 billion pounds (USD 395 million) in the next fiscal year 2018-2019, which starts on July 1, a government document showed. The document, distributed by the Ministry of Finance to the House of Representatives on Sunday during the Minister of Finances financial statement for the draft budget 2018-2019, revealed that the country aims to collect tax revenues from cigarettes and tobacco by about 58.524 billion pounds in the next fiscal year. The government expects to achieve 51.452 billion pounds of tax revenues from cigarettes and tobacco in the current fiscal year 2017-2018. The Egyptian government has been implementing economic reforms since the end of 2015 in order to revive the economy, including raising energy and medicine prices, liberalizing the exchange rate, passing new investment and civil service laws, amendments to the income tax law, approving the VAT law and approving the bankruptcy law. The government is targeting a primary surplus of 0.3% of 2017/18 budget – it had already achieved a 0.2% primary surplus in the first half of the current fiscal year. The preliminary financial statement for the 2018/2019 budget estimated debts interests targeted by the government in FY2018/19 is EGP541.305 billion, compared to EGP437.908 billion expected in FY2017/2018 budget.