The economic ministerial group unveiled to President Mubarak the effects of the global economic crisis on Egypt during a three-hour meeting at the presidential headquarters yesterday. The meeting was attended by Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif, the Governor of the Central Bank of Egypt Farouk el-Okda, the Chief of Presidential Staff Zakaria Azmi and the ministers of Defense, Military Production, Finance, Legal Affairs and Parliamentary Councils, Petroleum, International Cooperation, Economic Development, Investments, Housing, Tourism, and Local Development. According to Finance Minister Youssef Boutros Ghali, the decrease in global demand will reduce Egypt's exports of industrial and agricultural commodities as well as services, such as the Suez Canal and tourism. During the meting, the ministers discussed some important economic issues, notably how to follow up on the performance of the Egyptian economy in the future as well as the mechanisms to push growth rates up, increase exports, and attract investments to hold off the repercussions of the global financial crisis and face its effects on the world's economic activities and its expected impact on Egyptian tourism and exports. Speaking to the press after the meeting, Ghali said that most of these sectors have gone through a downturn over the past few months, saying this would affect the potentials for growth of the Egyptian economy. He said he did not expect growth to be as high as last year, yet he ruled out the possibility of predicting the precise size of the slowdown, especially as we are still in the first half of the current financial year. The finance minister made it clear that the measures taken by the Egyptian government and shown to President Mubarak basically aim to create demand for Egyptian commodities and services by spending on infrastructure projects. He also affirmed the additional funds allocated to these projects this year would be LE 30 billion rather than LE 15 billion. LE 15 billion should be injected over the next six months, namely in the second half of the current financial year. "I expect that by the end of this crisis, our economy will be able to grow thanks to what will have been spent on infrastructure projects. I think the growth will stand at 10%" Ghali said, stressing that it was necessary to spend carefully and to allocate these funds to sectors that may create job opportunities.
