By Ashraf Sadek: CAIRO, Aug 8, 2018 - Prime Minister Dr Moustafa Madbouli inaugurated on Wednesday the 41st meeting of the Association of African Central Banks (AACB), in the Red Sea resort town of Sharm El-Sheikh. The meeting, hosted by Egypt for the first time, is attended by a number of regional and international institutions, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the African Union Commission, the European Central Bank, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA). Addressing the opening session, Prime Minister Madbouli said that Egypt was – as always – keen on playing an active role in Africa's development. In his speech, the Prime Minister stressed the special character of relations that bind Egypt and Africa and the importance of strengthening them in all fields. Madbouli also explained the Egyptian vision on strengthening the Continent's economies and monetary policies through an approach that aimed to boost co-operation among African central banks. He said that the African central banks had a role to play in the development of the Continent's economies. They could do this through extra economic reform and restructuring efforts as well as eliminating the flow of illegal funds into African countries. "Bringing about fiscal reforms and implementing economic restructuring programmes for effecting development are the present challenges facing Africa nowadays," Premier Madbouli said. He expressed the hope that the Sharm meetings would help enhance economic co-operation and integration among African countries. "Achieving these goals," Dr Madbouli said, "requires a strong will by all of us to boost the African financial sector, encourage economic growth in all African countries, and take whatever measures deem necessary to stop the flow of illegal capital into the African economies." He said that broadening the scope of economic co-operation among African countries would create a suitable environment for overcoming all the international, regional and economic challenges facing the Continent. "Through co-operation, we can create a new reality that will put Africa in the place that it truly deserves on the world economic map," he said. Premier Madbouli said that inter-African co-operation would help realise the cherished socio-economic justice for all the 'sons of Africa' and make a good future for all of them. In his speech, Prime Minister Madbouli also made special reference to the role played by the Cairo government to reform the Egyptian economy during the past four years. Premier Madbouli reviewed Egypt's economic programme and the unprecedented economic decisions taken by the government to push forward the pace of development, asserting in this connection the keenness of the government to promote African investments in Egypt. He said that Egypt was more than willing to share its successful economic reform expertise with African countries. "Three years ago, the Egyptian economy faced a host of challenges, which included the presence of a parallel foreign exchange market, a small reserve of foreign currencies, and a big deficit in the balance of payments," Premier Madbouli said. He said that if these challenges continued to exist, a bloated economic crisis would come into being and reach a stage in which any reform or solution would be impossible. "If this deplorable situation continued, it would have been quite impossible to reform the Egyptian economy and the cost of reforming it would have multiplied. "To come out of this crisis, the Egyptian government and the Central Bank of Egypt launched a set of economic reforms that included monetary and fiscal restructuring programme, rationalising state subsidies, and liberalising the pound-dollar exchange rates. These steps had restored the investors' confidence in the Egyptian economy, increased production, and accelerated the economic growth rates," he said, adding that these reforms, which were praised by international economic agencies, had started bearing fruits.
