According to Chairman of the Special Council for Economic Development affiliated to the Presidency, Abla Abdel Latif, the construction sector is one of the most important economic sectors in Egypt, especially since it serves a large number of other sectors.
The council is working in collaboration with the Ministry of Local Development on a project called “Your Work Next to Your Home”.
The project aims to create jobs in governorates at small and medium factories to be suitable for the governorates’ capabilities and to reduce labour migration to metropolitan areas. Latif said the role of the Special Council for Economic Development is to set an integrated developmental framework for Egypt by planning what will come after the current national projects.
Achieving economic efficiency and social justice is the council’s main objective. It will pursue this measure through the construction of national projects, in parallel with benefiting from resources and small projects that serve people who live outside the major governorates and cities. Head of the Egyptian Federation for Construction and Building Contractors Hassan Abdel Aziz said that the government recently paid a large portion of the contractors’ dues.
Moreover, it solved the problem of diesel fuel and overcame security and political problems that previously hindered construction companies. Because of the negative circumstances in the past years, the number of construction companies decreased to about 14,000 companies, compared to when it was more than 20,000.
Coinciding with ending the political, security and financial problems, about 2,000 companies in 2014 and 4,000 companies in 2015 recommenced their operations, which increased the number of companies to more than 20,000.
Despite this development, Abdel Aziz said construction companies are still suffering some problems related to insurance and compensation.
Moreover, they object to the law of tenders and auctions, law of balanced contract, and law that will instate the value added tax (VAT).
