Minister of Finance, Youssef Botours Ghali, came in as he always did: confident and relaxed. When he became face to face with a number of foreign journalists, who came to listen to officials of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) speaking about the issues that will be discussed during the forthcoming 9th General Congresss of the party, slated for November 3, he knew what he would say.

Egypt managed to restructure its economy by slashing custom duties two years ago and reformed its tax laws. The upshot has been a jump in foreign direct investments from $2 billion to $12 billion. “We also managed to create a million jobs this year and an equal number of jobs last year,” said Ghali. “Economic reform has made impressive results and we will be discussing how these reforms should affect all strata of the Egyptian society during the next congress.”

The 9th General Congress of the NDP, according to Chairman of the Media Committee, Alie Eddin Helal, would be different. Helal said that the conference would be the first gathering of the members of the ruling party in the aftermath of the massive reforms that have been done on all levels of the party.

“Around 6000 party members, belonging to all secretariats are due to attend the congress,” said Helal.

The Chairman of the Media Committee was clear in noting that dramatic changes would not happen in the leadership of the party during the next congress. He said some changes would take place on the secretariat level, but “dramatic change” is out of the question during the congress.

The Party members and Government ministers who attended the press briefing today (Monday, 29 October) included Minister of Housing Ahmed el-Maghrabi, Minster of Investment Mahmoud Mohei Eddin and Minister of Finance Botrous Ghali, Chairman of the Training and Political Education Committee Mohamed Kamal and Chairman of the Media Committee Alie Eddin Helal.

They underlined that President Mubarak, the incumbent Chairman of the ruling party, would run for the post of Party Chairman.

“We opened the door for whoever wanted to run in the election for the top spot inside the party,” said Helal.

He added that attendees at the 9th General Conference of the party would be endorsing the economic policies that were pursued during the last few years.

“But, the focus would be on how to make all social segments share the benefits of reform,” said Ghali. “We would also be ready to receive any new instructions in this regard and also know the deadline for putting these instructions to effect.”

Kamal said that energy and water security would top the agenda of the discussion of the attendants of the congress. He said the issue of how to make a more efficient use of Egypt's water resources would be focal in the discussions.

At this point, the Minister of Housing, was quick to note that Egypt needs to rethink the way it uses its quota of the water of the Nile.

“We need to magnify the benefit from this quota,” said el-Maghrabi. “But not the quota itself.” El-Maghrabi added that population increase in Egypt would be a central point in discussions during the congress. He said the population in Egypt would increase by 21 million in the next 15 years. “We need to be ready for that,” he said.

Kamal said there would be discussions during the congress on the proposed anti-terrorism law and also a new law to regulate the elections of the professional syndicates.

Meanwhile, Mohei Eddin said there will also be discussion on a new freedom of information act. He said the act would commit the various state institutions to make information available to both journalists and ordinary people and also create the legal channels to which people can resort if they do not get the information they want.