CAIRO - Egypt hopes to increase its average annaul economic growth to 8 per cent over the coming five years as it adheres to its business-friendly reform plan, President Hosni Mubarak told parliament Sunday. "We have to complete, and adhere to, our reform agenda that has strengthened our economy, pushing it for high growth rates and helped us overcome two consecutive global crises with our resources," the president said. The country faces a presidential election in September 2011, with it still unclear if Mubarak, now 82, will run again. Mubarak, who was addressing a joint session of the upper and lower houses of parliament, said that Egypt will establish more industrial and commercial zones, others for agribusiness " to raise our productivity, exports and ability to compete and push our average growth rates to eight per cent during the next five years." Egypt witnessed a 5-per-cent growth in the last fiscal year, yet the government seeks to get back to the 7-per-cent growth it had seen before the crisis hit. "Major economies still suffer from repercussions of the global economic recession," Mubarak said. "Our economy stood in front of these repercussions and we did not reach out for any help. " The government have pushed through business-friendly reforms since 2004, which pushed for several years of rapid economic growth until the rate slowed to 4.7 per cent in the 2008-09 fiscal year. The economy was was hurt by declines in several sectors including tourism, exports, Suez Canal traffic and expatriate revenues.
