The Egyptian Cabinet official spokesman, Dr. Magdy Radi, said the government has laid out a fivefold strategy to face the financial crisis and its repercussions, especially on tourism, exports, foreign investments, Suez Canal revenues and the remittances of Egyptians working abroad. He pointed out the government expected a direct and successive fall in the revenues of these sectors throughout the crisis. "The government has focused on developing the national economy, allowing it to get over the negative effects of the crisis, re-launching it based on the local market, making more public investments in utilities, the infrastructure and services, and using national savings to finance medium and big enterprises", he told the press. "The first pivot of this strategy, as laid out by Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif, consists in stimulating the economy by encouraging investments, increasing public investments by some LE 15 billion in the first six months of the current fiscal year, defining which organs are more capable of spending, and focusing on them when allocating public spending " he added. "As for the second pivot, it consists in facing the repercussions of the crisis on unemployment. A social plan will be set to encourage companies not to lay off their workers. Another plan will also be set to support the agricultural sector and farmers, as a program will be carried out to attract LE 66 billion in agro-industrial investments. The goal will be to implement projects in food industry areas (474 factories and 785 logistic centers) on a surface of some 1.3 million acres, thus creating 750,000 job opportunities. "National savings will be used in the best possible way after studies and researches are carried out for this purpose. So, we will make us of liquidity in public banks and local financing sources, especially as lending still represents 54% of all deposits and it can be increased. "Internal trade will be developed through a program aimed at avoiding wastes of commodities both while they are transported and when they are repeatedly delivered from production to consumption places. This program will also aim at ending the monopoly carried out by storing commodities and not letting them circulate." In this regard, he pointed to the modernization of the institutional and legislative framework; 12 laws will be reviewed which regulate internal trade, the infrastructure of all internal trade activities will be developed, and an integrated and modern database on internal trade will be built. "Finally, Arab investments will be attracted through coordination with the Arab countries which have surplus oil revenues, so that they can pump investments into Egypt and carry out major projects worth at least $10 billion. These countries are Saudi Arabia, Libya, the UAE and Kuwait" the spokesman said.
