|
Wednesday, May 01, 1996
Peace helped Egypt to start an economic reform process which rectified the chronic imbalance in the economic structure, restored credibility to our national economy and placed Egypt in its proper position at the forefront of investment and production centres in the Middle East. Peace also helped Egypt to realise true and firm democracy which withstood to overwhelm tempests. It granted the Egyptan society pluralism, a free press, and a new political system based on a state of institutions under the supremacy of law. The economic reform process has succeeded in Egypt because it took into consideration the conditions of the society. It adopted the system of measured stages. If we had followed the path of others by liquidating all the established institutions before finding the proper equivalents to replace them, we would have wreaked utter destruction and chaos that heralded a relapse in the reform process and long suffering. We have covered the greatest part of reform successfully despite its enormous deifficulties, for we have taken into consideration our own experiment and avoided the errors of others. The Egyptian workers have supported the economic reform efforts out of their responsible awareness that reform aims at the promotion of the nation's potentials, upgrading production institutions, increasing growth rates and creating more job opportunities for the coming generations. These goals require optimal investment of the available potentials, the maximum possible expansion in development in addition to new potentials that realize the aspired upsurge towards vaster vistas. At present, we have an Egyptian private sector with an insight into the future and not into the past. It establishes huge projects on national soil, confident of his history and stability, bearing in mind the rights of workers in wages, incentives and services, and providing them with many social care programs that are more progressive and comprehensive than those of the business sector. Doors should be wide open before these people. We should encourage to development projects without any limits or ceilings. They should be given priority to foreign capital. We have many such bright examples of hope that deserve all out encouragement. We have a great number of such factories in the new cities which were capable of entering the competitive arena in markets abroad by their upgraded production. They produced high quality products which were a source of pride to every Egyptian. We also have scores of Egyptian investors who set up huge touristic projects along the Red Sea coast in Sinai, thus creating thousands of work opportunities to our promising youth. We have examples of great efforts exerted by the private sector in the development agriculture field in the new reclaimed land. Modern and advanced agriculture was set up, the products of which is mostly for exports. They have proven their worthiness by their ability to withstand competition from many countries. It has now become an established fact that increasing development rats and their expansion outside the narrow strip of valley to cover all the country, and to create new job opportunities to meet the demands of the Egyptian youth and the coming generations, makes it incumbent upon us to encourage the private sector and extend its contribution to the greatest extent possible, grant it the credibility of the society for without its ever-increasing role in development projects, it will be difficult to realize the objectives of the production upsurge stage. We are proud and satisfied that the private sector which in 1981 used to contribute about 20% of the volume of investment, its contribution is now reaching 55%. According to 1994 assessments, the public sector has contributed in the new investments with some L.E 17 billion. This rate will rise to about L.E 22.5 billion this year. Over 3 successive five-year-plans, we achieved an annual average growth rate of 4.7%, as the largest part of our huge investment expenditures during this period were channeled to the deteriorated infrastructure. But, this year and in the coming years, the government embarks upon raising the growth rates to the aspired level. We have stable economic policies which create an attractive investment climate. The exchange rate was stabilized according to market rates, the budget deficit deminished, inflation rates decreased, impediments to investment were restored the funds of Egyptian expatriates were eliminated, and the pioneer role of the private sector became essential for the future of development. Our infrastructure on which we spent about L.E. 160 billion, and without which no investment project could have been implemented. Monetary liquidity enabled our national banks to offer all the needed credit facilities in Egyptian pounds and foreign currencies. Our pioneer experience in economic reform was successful. We went through all its difficult phases, redressed the chronic structural imbalance of our national economy and set Egypt's priorities in the right order. We had the chance to find drastic solutions for many of our problems and sought progress through self-reliance. Above all that, we have loyal workers capable of perfection, and of absorbing modern systems of production. They highly esteem the value of work, back every national project, protect factories and establishments, as they believe that protecting the institutions of national work is protecting the potentials of the homeland and the source of living of millions of workers. Our ambitious target is to make Egypt, within the coming few years, at the vanguard of states that receive industrial investment in the Middle East and to become a main export centre to all world markets. That hope is enhanced by a sustainable increase in private investments which exceed L.E. 22 billion this year. The greater part of it was allocated to industry which also received foreign investments increasingly. However, I ask the government to go ahead with the elimination of the remaining obstacles hindering industrial investment or delaying its operation, to concentrate its efforts on developing the projects of the infrastructure which can open new arteries far from the narrow valley to complete the establishment of the new industrial areas north of the Gulf of Suez, Port Said and west of Alexandria, and to plan for setting up similar areas in the south of the valley. Also, tourism has to be at the forefront of investment which is given top priority by the government and society, especially with the ever increasing of national capital towards investments in tourism. We hope that Egypt's share of international tourism will grow in a way that meets its tourist capabilities in the coming years. |
|
||||||||
Print this page 
Mail this page 