Egypt's Planning Minister Hala El-Said said Upper Egypt will see government investments of 47 billion Egyptian pounds ($2.9 billion) in the the financial year 2020/2021 budget that constitutes 25 percent of the total distributed government investments, a 50 percent increase compared to the allocations in the the financial year 2019/2020 budget. Hala 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 said 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 2.9 billion pounds 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 7.9 billion pounds over four years starting from 2017-2018, in addition to directing 19.2 billion pounds 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.
