Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif said today (Monday, November 5) that the government and the National Democratic Party worked closely together to fulfill the aspirations of citizens adding that coordination between the government and the ruling party could not be better.

"The NDP holds its 9th General Conference for us to be able to assess our performance over the last five years," said Nazif.

"The conference has seen a new leap that was caused by the new set of thought the Supreme Policies Council and the Policies Committee have injected in it."

He said NDP leaders asked his government in 2004 to put its ambitious vision for the Egyptian economy into effect to respond to the needs of citizens everywhere in Egypt.

He went on to say the development plans the governments of the NDP undertook since President Mubarak came to power in 1981 were aimed at compensating the Egyptians for the suffering they sustained in the wars in the preceding years.

"Economic indicators show that the Egyptian economy performs very well," said Nazif.

He said the reports of the World Bank say that Egypt was top on a list of countries that made great economic progress.

The Prime Minister added that one reason why the Egyptian economy started to recover was that it depended on diverse resources.

He said the industrial growth rate reached 6.8 per cent while growth in the tourism sector reached 12 per cent.

He went on to say that growth in the banking sector was also wonderful.

"Yet the main challenge for us is how to translate these figures into a reality that ordinary people can feel," said Nazif.

Nazif said that his government managed to deliver electricity to about 600.000 families for the first time over the last few years while new jobs were made available for the nation's graduates.

He said his government would take "Social Justice by Economic Development" as its motto for the next phase in its work.

He added that over the last two years, the government managed to put the electoral platform of President Mubarak into effect successfully. 

"The world changes rapidly bringing about new challenges everyday," said Nazif. "The solutions we put to the problems are all realistic."

He added that population increase was the biggest challenge for his government and that the Egyptians were increased by 1.3 million annually.

"This means that we have to present education, healthcare, transportation and jobs to 1.3 more people every year," he said.

He added that the government restructured the supreme population Council to overcome the population explosion and warn people against its adverse ramifications.

The Prime Minister underlined the importance of the subsidies the government gave to limited income people.

He said government subsidies reached LE60 billion.

"This amount of money is directed to bread, energy and transport," he said.

He said the revenues that comes from letting public assets into private hands was used in upgrading other public assets.

He added that the second biggest challenge that met his government related to price increases.

He explained that some of the reasons for price increases were out of the control of the government.

5/11/2007