About 200,000 people filed applications to join Egypt's National Democratic Party (NDP) ahead of the party's general congress due in November, NDP Secretary-General Safwat el-Sherif said.

"The NDP Policies Secretariat, under its head Gamal Mubarak, has already prepared some of the working papers to be tackled during the congress", he said.

During the coming week, meetings will be held with Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif and a number of other ministers to review working papers to be addressed during the congress.

"The working papers were prepared according to priorities set by President Hosni Mubarak during his recent meeting with the NDP political bureau", Sherif said.

The paper focuses on means of finding solutions to citizens' problems including soaring prices and water shortage.

"The NDP Secretariat is considering securing more credits to prop up the party's Youth Secretariat so as to offer more help to university students by providing them with the necessary books and reference books", said NDP Secretary-General Safwat el-Sherif.

"The NDP General Secretariat is receiving at present nominations for the party's secretaries at governorates level", he said asking all partisan units to adhere to neutrality and integrity.

Supervisory committees have been formed to follow up the elections which are to start today with more than 200,000 new members, many of whom are women and youth.