Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi inaugurated a number of development projects in Upper Egypt and nationwide via video conference on Sunday, in a public event during his visit to Beni Suef goverorate. The projects include a number of hospitals, water treatment stations, road expansions and university development plans across different governorates, including Sohag, Luxor and Beni Suef. The new projects also include expansions to a Samsung factory that produces devices relying on made-in-Egypt components at the rate of 80 percent. The president also inaugurated the $185 million second phase of Beni Suef's General Hospital. Acting Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouli, Minister of Defence Sedki Sobhi and other state officials accompanied the president on his visit to Beni Suef. During a conference at which Egyptian ministers and government officials spoke about recently-launched projects, Egyptian Minister of Social Solidarity Ghada Wali said 86 percent of the ministry's financial aid to the country's most impoverished groups under the Takaful and Karama program goes to Upper Egypt. The Takaful and Karama (Solidarity and Dignity) programs were launched in 2015 with the aim of offering financial backing to impoverished families with school-age children, the elderly and people with special needs. Upper Egypt is home to the country's poorest areas. A 2016 report by Egypt's official statistics agency CAMPAS said that 57 percent of rural areas in the country's south are impoverished, with the country's highest poverty rates in Upper Egypt's governorates of Sohag, Assiut and Qena. In his address to the conference, Tade Minister Tarek Kabil said 10 industrial zones and 3,000 small-sized factories in the country's south are planned for completion by the end of this year. The projects are part of the government's plans to stimulate industrial growth in Upper Egypt and its contribute to the growth in the national domestic product, he said.
