Sisi: Egypt’s Blueprint for Stability, Investment and Growth

On behalf of the Egyptian people, I welcome the international investment community to Euromoney’s Egypt Conference: Stability, Investment and Growth. This is an opportune time for the global financial community to come to Egypt to witness firsthand the changes that the country has made over the past year to fundamentally reform the economy and unleash its productive capacity. Our government is committed to pursuing policies aimed at achieving high and sustainable rates of growth and creating an attractive, predictable, fair and internationally competitive business environment. We know that we face many challenges ahead on both a macro and micro-level before we can fully realize these objectives, but Egypt is on the right track. This country is turning the corner on its recent unusual period of political strife and uncertainty, and a positive momentum has already begun. As we now look ahead to fulfilling Egypt’s potential, we invite both domestic and foreign investors to take part actively in the re-invigoration of the Egyptian economy.

Egypt’s economic revival is first and foremost being driven by the ongoing restoration of confidence in the country’s path. This reflects the improvement in political stability as we have implemented our political roadmap. So far we have succeeded in implementing two of the three major milestones outlined in the roadmap, namely adopting the constitution and holding the presidential elections. The third one – the election of a new legislature – will follow in the very near future.

Growing confidence also rests on the structural reforms the government has already implemented – as well as on the many additional reforms still in the pipeline – to correct fundamental deficiencies in our economy. For too long, excessive and ineffective government spending, wasteful energy subsidies, endemic corruption and economic mismanagement had undermined the promise of our country, strangling our economy and our people’s dreams. Although a preceding period of prudent macroeconomic policies and structural reforms pursued during 2004 to 2008 quickly generated 7% growth per annum, we did not have enough time then to institutionalise the reforms nor to enable the average Egyptian citizen to benefit from the fruits of this take-off in growth.