Egypt exerts huge efforts on water security issues as a part of implementing its 2030 sustainable development strategy, said Hala Al-Saeed, minister of planning, monitoring and administrative reform in a conference held on Tuesday to represent the country’s Voluntary National Repot (VNR).
Al-Saeed mentioned that many representatives of the international institutions and development partners praised Egypt’s reform measures and its economic programme that is supported by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Moreover, Al-Saeed noted that the government awaits the GDP’s first quarter of FY 2018/19 indicators to determine whether the current emerging market crisis is a serious long term problem or temporary issue, adding,” everything will be clearer by January, we mull all the updates and we have a very strong fiscal and macroeconomic situation now.”
Moreover, Al-Saeed said that the government will offer four firms in the Egyptian Exchange (EGX) till the end of 2018, noting that, “the latest decrease in the EGX will not affect the governmental plans regarding the IPOs programme, due to the market’s thirst for new offerings. So we are very committed to the planned offerings.”
Meanwhile, Al-Seed noted that her ministry is due to finalise its reform survey of the state administration on October 2019, adding that it will begin the survey early October 2018 and it will finish the ministries’ part by the end of January.
There is a clear imbalance in the state administration system as about 20% of the employees will claim pension shortly due to their old age, said Al-Saeed, noting that the planned state administration survey will offer a detailed information about employees, which helps the government to well assess the issue.
The minister affirmed the governmental reforms for the industrial sector with the aim of boosting productive sectors and exports, adding, “we plan for Egypt to have an export led economy.”
Current borrowing rate is convenient, and the government is working hard to boost investments, said the minister, noting that about 40% of the investment plan goes for education and health sectors.
“We have controlled our expenditure in line with increasing investments, which is unusual for some countries to do. In Turkey they slashed their budget expenditure and investments to control their crisis, but we do not do that,” mentioned the minister.
The minister noted that her ministry finalised settlements worth EGP 80bn lately with government entities, while it is due to finalise additional settlements worth EGP 200bn in the future.
