CAIRO, Nov 20 (MENA) – Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly stressed on Wednesday that Egypt remains committed to meeting its financial obligations even in its most challenging periods, stressing that the country will neither falter nor delay in paying its foreign debts.
“We are confident in this matter, and we examine, in constant coordination with the Central Bank, these issues in detail during our meetings,” Madbouly said at the weekly cabinet press conference.
The prime minister said several meetings were held either by the economic group or the newly formed External Debt Management Committee to mull ways to maintain control over external debt in light of existing commitments and available dollar resources.
Madbouly said the IMF review mission will finalize its mission in the next two days, noting that significant progress was achieved on several key targets.
He said the IMF’s managing director had praised the package of measures adopted by Egypt lately and some targets were modified upon directives of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, adding that the IMF mission was fully understanding of Egypt’s requests.
He said the review process has gone well and will be presented to the IMF’s senior management for final decisions.
He also referred to Fitch’s upgrading of credit rating of four Egyptian banks from B-/Positive to B/Stable, namely the National Bank of Egypt, Banque Misr, Banque de Caire and Commercial International Ban (CIB).
Talking about President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s participation in G20 summit, Madbouly said Egypt’s participation in the G20 Summit, its fourth in the past eight years, reflects the international community’s appreciation for Egypt’s status in international blocs.
Madbouly referred to the key messages President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi conveyed during his speech at the summit in which he stressed Egypt’s firm and unwavering stance towards supporting the Palestinian cause and backing Lebanon and renewed the call for an international intervention to end the ongoing violence and aggression in Gaza and Lebanon.
Madbouly said Sisi underlined the need to pay more attention to human development, citing the success of Egypt’s flagship “Decent Life” initiative, a global-scale project aimed at improving the quality of life for 60 million Egyptians.
The initiative was highly appreciated by UN agencies and other international organizations, the premier said.
President Sisi announced at the summit Egypt’s accession to the Global Alliance to Combat Poverty and Hunger, reaffirming Egypt’s commitment to accelerating efforts to address these pressing global challenges as part of the Sustainable Development Goals, he said.
The President also reiterated Egypt’s readiness to host a global hub for grain storage and distribution, especially in the Suez Canal Economic Zone thanks to its distinguished geographic location, inviting international partners to help establish this hub, he added.
Madbouly said President Sisi referred during his participation in the G20 summit to growing development, knowledge, and the digital gap among states, citing developing nations’ inability to arrange necessary funds for all development projects their peoples’ needs and calling for grating soft funding to developing nations to enable them to accelerate progress as regards achieving sustainable development, knowledge growth, and digital transformation.
About the signing of a strategic partnership agreement with Brazil, he said Egypt and Brazil share closer viewpoints towards political issues and have similar circumstances in terms of resources and population, stressing that the agreement will be translated into joint projects and developmental programs within the coming period.
About home affairs, he said the state is mainly focusing on the industrial sector, citing the comeback of Nasr automotive manufacturing company.
He said the company has a long history in the automotive manufacturing domain, and its return to this industry is supported by sustainable private sector partnerships.
He made clear that the State Ownership Policy Document is not about selling assets but about maximizing their value and ensuring their sustainability.
Madbouly referred to significant developments in the automotive sector over the past week, including the signing of a contract with Malaysian car manufacturer Proton.
Also, this week saw a visit by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Industry Kamel El Wazir to the Egyptian-German Automotive Company (EGA) factory in 6th of October City, where the assembly of a new car model for the Egyptian market has commenced.
Madbouly said these efforts are part of the government’s Automotive Industry Development Strategy that was initiated more than two years ago. The strategy included introducing tax incentives and the establishment of the Supreme Council for the Automotive Industry.
Over the past two years, Egypt signed more than eight agreements with various global companies with the aim of making Egypt a regional and international hub for the automotive industry, he said, adding that these efforts are not merely focusing on assembly but on full-scale manufacturing.
One of the government’s strategies for the automotive industry is to strongly embrace new technologies, especially hybrid and electric cars, the premier said.
He noted that the government had proposed a special law in this regard and the Supreme Council for the Automotive Industry had adopted a package of incentives to encourage large companies to work, not only for producing 20,000 to 40,000 vehicles, but even more.
In addition, some agreements have been signed with Chinese companies to establish new factories in the Suez Canal Economic Zone (SCZone) over the period ahead, to produce 50,000 or 100,000 vehicles annually, the prime minister pointed out.
Madbouly said during his meeting with the ministers of petroleum and finance yesterday, he instructed them to speed up the implementation of a government initiative to convert vehicles to run on natural gas instead of gasoline and diesel.
It has been directed to convert 250,000 gasoline cars and 25,000 diesel cars into natural gas vehicles (NGVs) per year, the premier noted.
Madbouly said some renewable power purchase agreements (PPAs) had been signed with UAE’s global renewables company “Masdar” to produce 1,200 MW of energy, scheduled to be put into service before next summer.
He noted that the company targets a production capacity of more than 4,000 MW by next summer to fulfill any additional energy demand.
In addition, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) has been signed for applying a new technology to install solar panels on water bodies” to take advantage of the enormous water body of Lake Nasser in Aswan, Madbouly said.
This will help reduce water loss through evaporation in the lake, the prime minister added.
As for the national economy, Madbouly said over the next couple of days the IMF review mission will conclude its work in Egypt.
“We have made significant progress with the IMF on many targets, the prime minister said, noting that the government had requested the mission to amend some targets based on the directives of President Abdel Fattah-al Sisi and the meeting with the IMF director during her visit to Egypt earlier this month.
The premier referred to the results of his meeting with the CEO of Rosatom, which is implementing the Dabaa nuclear power plant project, noting that there was an emphasis on the need to adhere to the set timelines, especially that the Dabaa plant is part of Egypt’s goal for renewable energy to reach 42 percent of its electricity generation mix by 2030.
Madbouly said nuclear energy is one of the best sources of clean energy, noting that a meeting that brought together President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of their participation in the BRICS summit witnessed an agreement to accelerate the implementation of the Dabaa plant and adhere to previously set timetables despite all the international challenges facing the project, whether the sanctions that were imposed on some Russian companies or the global economic crisis.
Madbouly highlighted the importance of the Cairo ICT 2024 held under the slogan “The Next Wave” and concluded today, noting that Egypt has become a training hub for more than 400 thousand people annually in the field of technology and is working to qualify its youth to be tech savvy. He pointed out the fact that Egypt now has more than 145,000 experts in the outsourcing industry and more than 175 companies specialized in this field and operating worldwide, in addition to 11,000 specialists in the electronics and integrated systems industry.
He pointed out that Egypt is classified by international institutions in the “A” category in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) applications, reiterating the Egyptian government’s commitment to fulfilling its digital transformation goals.
Regarding the tourism sector, the prime minister referred to the meeting that brought together the minister of tourism and a number of experts and investors in this field, where clear and required executive plans were developed to achieve the goal of attracting 30 million tourists to come and visit Egypt in the coming few years. (MENA)
