El-said pointed out the government’s implementation of many reforms that are aimed at achieving comprehensive growth and macro-economic stability
Minister of Planning and Economic development, Hala El-said, recently talked about the government’s efforts to achieve economic reforms during the “Major Global Transformations: Future Prospects for the Egyptian Economy” conference, organized by the Faculty of Economics and Political Science at Cairo University.
The minister spoke of the state’s efforts, highlighting great political, economic and social challenges and changes in Egypt. She also discussed the negative economic and social health effects that the current pandemic has caused.
Regarding the state’s Egypt Vision 2030, she pointed out the government’s implementation of many reforms that are aimed at achieving comprehensive growth and macro-economic stability, whose success has been reflected by the positive indicators that the economy has seem pre and during the COVID-19 outbreak.
She noted that before COVID-19 reached Egypt, the rate of economic growth before the crisis reached about 5.6% in the first half of fiscal year 2019/20 and about 5% during the third quarter of 2019/20, with an average growth of 5.4% in the first nine months of the year.
The reform efforts, alongside the diversity of the Egyptian economy, in various sectors have contributed to the economy’s flexibility and ability to absorb external economic shocks, including regional dangers and the pandemic. This led to international institutions positivity about the Egyptian economy, the only economy in the region to have positive growth rates despite the pandemic.
The minister emphasized the rearrangement of the priorities of all countries, due to COVID-19, and the importance of several sectors, highlighting healthcare and social protection, education, and digital transformation.
The health and education sectors were of the utmost importance to the Egyptian government, she added, as main tools for the development and building of human capabilities and the main entry point for the progress of society.
El-said went on further to discuss the importance of the telecommunications and industrial sector; with the high volume of investments directed to the telecommunications sector in the 2020/21 plan to be around EGP 10 billion, and how the pandemic demonstrated the importance of localizing certain industries such as pharmaceutical and agricultural industries in order to take advantage of the changes in the global supply chain. These provided access to new markets, in which Egyptian products currently enjoy competitive advantages.
