Germany launches job creation initiative in Egypt

The initiative, created by the German KfW Development Bank on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), aims to help Egypt create integrated markets, increasing competitiveness and innovation, according to German Ambassador to Egypt Frank Hartmann.

"The German government is supporting this initiative because we believe that the growth of private sector is key to creating more job opportunities, especially since Egypt needs to create 800,000 to one million job opportunities annually to meet the needs of youth for jobs with the current rate of population growth," Hartmann stated.

He added that the private sector is home to nine out of 10 jobs created worldwide. It is the role of the state, in his view, to create the conditions that allow the private sector to grow and thrive.

Thus, Hartmann said, the private sector needs to grow to create more job opportunities, especially as the share of the private sector in Egypt's economy was only around 30 percent in 2020.

Bernd Siegfried, director of KfW office in Egypt, said that the main objective of this initiative is to remove investment barriers and to create decent and sustainable jobs in the private sector. The initiative aims to create up to 100,000 new jobs over the course of five years.

He explained that some of the obstacles to investment include the lack of access to needed energy, water and road infrastructure. Moreover, access to finance is not easy as local finance perceive some projects as high risk, request interest rates beyond the project's means or offer only short term loans.