Water & food security projects top economic & social development plan in Egypt FY2024/25 budget
During the weekly cabinet meeting, El-Said stressed the role of public investments in ensuring water and food security and providing electricity for agricultural reclamation projects in New Delta areas such as Toshka, South Wadi El-Natroun, Sinai, Beni Suef Farms, and Minya.
She added that the government intends to establish more seawater desalination plants with a capacity of 434 thousand cubic metres per day, add new agricultural areas, improve and increase agricultural, animal, and aquaculture production efficiency, and modernize the agricultural holding system.
Furthermore, El-Said noted that the government intends to construct 471 drinking water stations and 248 sewage treatment stations and increase housing units to 337,000 residential units.
She also highlighted the government's goal to provide safe and sustainable transport systems, stating that the objectives of the FY2024/25 plan in this regard include directing investments to reduce road accidents in priority governorates, promote population localization, and improve connectivity indicators in several governorates, particularly Upper Egypt governorates.
In this regard, El-Said noted that injuries from road accidents have decreased by 33 percent between 2018 and 2020.
Moreover, she pointed out that the key aspects of the government's road plan include five projects to complete the national and strategic road network and another 17 to complete the roads connecting different governorates.
According to El-Said, the government also plans to carry out three projects to establish Nile axes and four projects for the upper car bridge.
In addition, she highlighted how the government's plan includes digital transformation to improve the quality of services provided to citizens, including digitalizing university hospitals and several government initiatives and services related to education, culture, health, judiciary, and taxes.
El-Said also noted that the plan involves establishing a database for the National Council for Persons with Disabilities.
Similarly, she indicated that next year's fiscal plan targets empowering local administration and enhancing decentralization through local development programs.
In this regard, El-Said highlighted that the plan's most important targets at the local level include paving 1,356 internal roads, lighting 670 major streets, establishing and improving the efficiency of 25 major parking lots, establishing 52 new markets and exhibitions, completing 18 slaughterhouses, and implementing the national program for solid waste management and the 100 million trees initiative.
Moreover, she listed several projects the government plans to carry out in Sinai in FY2024/25.
These projects include establishing 5 developmental clusters in North Sinai in Al-Hassanat, Al-Wafaaq, Najaa Shabana, and Al-Mahdiyah.
They also include providing irrigation sources for more than 14,000 acres in new communities in Sinai and establishing a public irrigation network for nearly 11,000 acres in the Bir Al-Abd area in the peninsula.
According to El-Said, the plan further includes upgrading and improving the efficiency of the Taba Road and the Nuweiba/Ras Al-Naqqab Road and establishing 13 agricultural clusters in North Sinai and 15 agricultural clusters in South Sinai.