Egypt's Minister of Planning and Economic Development Hala El-Said said that the governorates of Upper Egypt will see government investments amounting to EGP 47 billion in the FY20-2021 budget, which constitutes 25 percent of the total distributed government investments, a 50 percent increase compared to the allocations in the FY2019/2020 budget. El-Said made her comments during a meeting held on Sunday with economic expert and executive director of the Egypt Network for Integrated Development (ENID/El Nidaa) Heba Handousa. El-Said asserted that the government prioritises the localisation of the sustainable development goals in the Egyptian governorates with the aim of achieving the concept of inclusive growth and balanced regional development as one of the main pillars of Egypt's Vision 2030. On the local development program in Upper Egypt, El Said stressed that within the framework of the efforts exerted to accelerate the implementation rates in the local development programmes in Upper Egypt; the sustainable development plan 2020/2021 includes government investments of about EGP 2.9 billion directed to development programmes in the governorates of Qena and Sohag. The total funds directed from the state's budget for this program reached about EGP 7.9 billion over four years starting from 2017-2018, in addition to directing EGP 19.2 billion to the border governorates (North and South Sinai, Matrouh, and New Valley) with a growth rate that exceeded 60 percent. During the meeting, Handousa gave a presentation on the development of economic blocs in Upper Egypt, explaining that there are 145 natural blocks in Egypt that include 77,654 establishments, about 79 percent of which are small and medium enterprises. She further noted that these blocs are the ones that were created without any government intervention or planning, and employ approximately 580,000 workers, a third of whom are women, according to the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency (MSMEDA). Rami Galal, the ministry's official spokesperson, said that the meeting also touched on the executive position of the local development programme in Upper Egypt. He added that some countries' experiences in the field of economic blocs were presented, such as the Moroccan experience, the Marrakech project for cultural activities, the Indian experience, the Chinese experience, and the measures taken to develop the Kashmir bloc.
