Egypt gained 88.6 billion Egyptian pounds ($5 billion) in tax revenue in the first quarter of the current fiscal year 2017/18, finance ministry source said on Sunday.

Egypt's tax revenue has reached 88.6 billion Egyptian pounds ($5 billion) in the first quarter of the current fiscal year 2017/18 compared to 57 billion pounds in the same period last year, a senior official at the finance ministry said on Sunday.

"It is 1 percent above the targeted tax revenue for the first quarter of the current fiscal year," Amr al-Mounir, deputy finance minister for tax policies, told reporters in a news conference.

He pointed out that the value-added tax (VAT) alone brought 50.7 billion Egyptian pounds while the income tax reached 21.76 billion Egyptian pounds.

"The tax revenues collected from state institutions like the Suez Canal Authority, the Central Bank of Egypt and the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation hit 16 billion Egyptian pounds in the first quarter of the current fiscal year," he said.

Egypt's fiscal year starts in early July and ends in late June.

Egyptian Finance Minister Amr al-Garhy said a coupe of days ago that Egypt's total tax revenues increased by 32 percent in the 2016/2017 fiscal year to reach 464 billion Egyptian pounds compared to 352 billion Egyptian pounds in the previous fiscal year.

The most populous Arab state has been suffering economic recession due to political instability and relevant security issues over the past few years, which led to a decline in the country's foreign investment and tourism revenues and an increase in the budget deficit and foreign and domestic debts.

The country started last year a strict three-year economic reform program including local currency full floatation to face dollar shortage, besides austerity measures, energy subsidy cuts and tax hikes.

Egypt's reform program is encouraged by a 12-billion-dollar loan from the International Monetary Fund, a third of which has already been delivered to Egypt in two tranches in November 2016 and July 2017.

(Xinhua News Agency, October 16, 2017)