The world is going through a critical time when world economies are facing their hardest test since the Second World War, according to international experts, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouli said.
“Under these conditions, made worse by the menacing fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic, the government had to work under unprecedented pressure,” Madbouli added during a meeting with a delegation of executive directors of the World Bank Group (WBG), representing 62 member states, on Monday.
“We did not have the luxury of time, we were determined to scale up our efforts to conquer this crisis,” the premier said, citing the difficult economic conditions Egypt had been through since 2011 after two revolutions.
“Therefore, we had no choice other than injecting more capital in public investments,” Madbouli told the WBG delegation led by Executive Director and Dean of the Board of Executive Directors at the World Bank Group Mirza Hassan, in the presence of International Cooperation Minister Rania Al-Mashat and Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs for Multilateral Regional and International Economic Affairs and Organizations Hisham Seifeldin.
Commending the fruitful partnership between Egypt and the World Bank Group, Madbouli said Egypt’s current cooperation portfolio is worth $5.93 billion, covering a wide array of projects in the healthcare, transport, and environment sectors, among others.
Confronted with a daunting challenge represented in the need to offer one million jobs annually, the State had to embark on massive investments each year, the premier said, adding that the national projects pursued since mid-2014 were meant to build critical infrastructure, while creating new jobs.
He said that these projects had already created five million job opportunities.
Madbouli added that after building essential infrastructure the government will embark on a new stage that focuses on stimulating the role of the private sector to serve as the main driver of development projects, highlighting the State’s successful efforts in creating a business-friendly environment to enable the private sector to play a bigger role over the coming period.
Upon the directives of President Abdel Fattah El Sisi, the government held a global press conference to announce some clear-cut steps for the period ahead, the prime minister said.
He noted that the first step is adopting the ‘State Ownership Policy Document’ to outline the state’s role in and vision for economic development, and how to increase private sector engagement in public investments from 30 per cent to 65 per cent over the next three years.
According to this document, the country will adopt a four-year program to offer $40 billion worth of state assets to Egyptian and foreign investors, Madbouli pointed out.
Source: State Information Service Egypt