Egypt Unveils Ambitious Economic and Social Development Plan for FY 2024-2025

H.E. Dr. Hala El Said, Minister of Planning and Economic Development, stated that the Economic and Social Development Plan for the fiscal year (FY) 2024/2025 aims to achieve a growth rate of 4.2%. This follows the Cabinet’s approval of the Economic and Social Development Plan for the fiscal year 2024-2025.

Dr. Hala El Said explained that the main pillars of the plan include six axes: constitutional entitlements, Egypt Vision 2030, the National Program for Structural Reforms, the General State Planning Law, the National Strategy for Human Rights, and the State’s Royal Policy Document. She pointed out the governing principles of the plan, which align with the updated Egypt Vision 2030, focusing on improving the living standards of all social classes by providing good education, training, and skills development for future jobs relying on scientific research and innovation. This includes providing suitable healthcare, achieving justice and accessibility, ensuring that all citizens, especially the most vulnerable groups and priority categories, enjoy all political, economic, social, religious, and cultural rights, with guaranteed access to all public services and the ability to face challenges and benefit from new opportunities by creating a conducive environment to enhance innovation, renewal, and future foresight, developing scientific scenarios for crisis management, providing data and information to identify appropriate adaptation options, and meeting present needs while ensuring the rights of future generations through enhancing the efficiency of resource utilization and sustainable consumption and production patterns.

El Said also explained that according to the plan, it is expected that four sectors will contribute about 51% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), representing the most important productive activities (agricultural, industrial, and real estate) alongside related commercial activities.

The plan also includes an increase in the share of private investments to reach about 50% of the total investments in line with the State’s Ownership Policy Document and the direction to enhance the private sector’s participation in development efforts, clarifying that the relative distribution of government investments includes allocating 42.4% for investment in human development, 25.4% for water and sanitation projects, 8.4% for construction projects, 7.1% for transportation and storage projects, 3.8% for energy projects, 3.6% for communication and information technology projects, 3.1% for agricultural projects, and 6.1% for other government investments, indicating that the plan includes funding for the second phase of the “Decent Life” presidential initiative.

In terms of the most significant goals, programs, and developmental initiatives included in the Economic and Social Development Plan for the next fiscal year (2024-2025), El Said highlighted that the top priority is human capital development through enhancing healthcare services, improving the education system, and enriching cultural and sports life.

El Said further elaborated that regarding the enhancement of healthcare services as one of the main goals and developmental initiatives, the determinants of the fiscal year plan 2024-2025 include achieving this goal through: activating the implementation of an investment incentive package for the private sector, which has been approved to increase its contribution to healthcare services from 30% to 50% by 2030, providing the necessary medical staff to operate hospitals and healthcare units, as well as paramedic teams to ensure the utilization of the massive investments directed to the healthcare sector, and providing the necessary investments for the healthcare sector.

El Said discussed the important targets of the plan regarding the health sector, which include: completing the implementation of 58 hospitals, completing the development and equipping of 55 hospitals affiliated with the Medical Centers Authority, completing the development and equipping of medical centers and units, completing the automation of university hospitals, working on population control and family development, completing the Medical City with the Nasser Institute, and establishing 246 projects in university hospitals.

El Said also indicated that the plan’s determinants include ensuring the availability and quality of pre-university education services; through expanding access to distinguished schools and applied schools to cover a larger number of governorates and expanding partnership with the private sector, directing investments to establish new classrooms to solve the problem of overcrowding especially in densely populated governorates, increasing focus on qualifying schools to obtain quality, committing to appointing 150,000 teachers to ensure the quality of education and efficient operation of new schools, especially in the basic education stage, focusing on priority governorates, and developing an ambitious and serious plan to reduce illiteracy rates focusing on Upper Egypt governorates, noting the education sector targets in the plan regarding pre-university education including developing 3,500 existing schools and rehabilitating them, establishing 16,000 new classrooms, replacing and renewing 13,000 classrooms, and providing tablets for first-year secondary students.

El Said added that the plan’s targets for vocational education include establishing 18 applied technology schools, establishing 1,000 new classrooms, developing 200 existing schools and rehabilitating them, replacing and renewing 1,083 classrooms, and for higher education, the targets reflect expansions of workshops and laboratories for 9 technological universities, completing electronic examinations at Egyptian universities, completing studies and research on the Egyptian genome, completing educational building projects, university cities, and civil defense projects for 27 government universities.

El Said confirmed that the plan’s determinants include enhancing the competitiveness of higher education by establishing a package of encouraging investment incentives for the private sector, increasing interest in projects to qualify Egyptian government universities for quality and international competitiveness, expanding the establishment of technological universities to cover a larger number of governorates in partnership with the private sector, targeting an increase in the number of international students to increase exports of educational services, noting that the plan targets linking the outputs of higher education with the labor market, especially through expanding the establishment of technological universities.

El Said said that the new fiscal year plan includes developing infrastructure and sports facilities, expanding the provision of sports facilities, expanding the provision of youth facilities, the targets of water and food security include enhancing the role of public investment in ensuring water and food security, securing electric nutrition for agricultural reform projects in “New Delta - South Toshka - Sinai - Bani Suef and Minya Farms,” expanding seawater desalination plants with a capacity of 434,000 m3/day, adding new agricultural areas, improving and increasing the efficiency of agricultural, animal, and fish farming production, and automating the agricultural holding system.

Regarding providing adequate housing and water and sanitation services, the minister pointed out that there are 471 drinking water stations targeted for establishment and development, and 248 sewage treatment stations targeted for establishment and development as well. It is also targeted to expand the provision of housing units to reach 337.2 thousand housing units.

El Said pointed out the goal of providing safe and sustainable transportation systems, explaining that the determinants of the plan 2024/2025 include directing investments to reduce road accidents in priority governorates, stimulate population localization, and improve connectivity indicators in a number of governorates, giving priority to Upper Egypt governorates, confirming a decrease by a rate of 33% in the rate of road accident injuries between 2018 and 2022.

El Said indicated that the plan’s most important targets for the transport sector include completing the national and strategic road network with 5 projects, interprovincial roads with 17 projects, establishing Nile axes with 3 projects, major car-bridges with 4 projects, completing the national and strategic road network with 4 projects, interprovincial roads with 9 projects, Nile axes with 8 projects, major car bridges with 3 projects, and starting to implement interprovincial roads with 10 projects.

El Said confirmed that the plan is directed towards digital transformation in order to improve the quality of services provided to citizens, through the automation of university hospitals and a large number of initiatives and government services related to education, culture, health, justice, taxes, and others, and establishing a database for the National Council for People with Disabilities.

Regarding the axis of enhancing local and regional development, El Said pointed out that the plan for the next fiscal year aims to empower local administration and enhance the trend towards decentralization, by activating developed local development programs, adding that the most important targets at the local level include paving 1356 internal roads, lighting 670 streets, establishing and raising the efficiency of 25 parking lots, establishing 52 markets and exhibitions, completing 18 slaughterhouses, implementing the National Solid Waste Management Program, and the initiative of 100 million trees.

The investments directed towards the development of Sinai in the fiscal year 2024-2025 were outlined by El-Said. They include establishing 5 developmental clusters in North Sinai (first phase) in: Al-Hasanat “Al-Mutalla - Abu Shanar” – Al-Wafaq – Al-Zahir and Al-Muqata’ah – Naj’ Shabana and Al-Mahdiyah. Also, providing a water source for the irrigation of 14.5 thousand acres in the new communities in Sinai, establishing a public irrigation network for 10.9 thousand acres in the Bir al-Abd area, upgrading and improving the efficiency of the tunnel / Taba road, improving the efficiency of the Nuweiba / Negev road “Wadi Wateer,” establishing 13 agricultural clusters in North Sinai, and 15 agricultural clusters in South Sinai.

Regarding the executive status of the first phase of “Decent Life,” El-Said referred to the study prepared in collaboration between the ministry and the International Food Policy Research Institute on “Assessing the Impact of the Decent Life Initiative on Rural Development and the National Economy,” where the results of this study indicated that the first phase of the Decent Life project contributed to reducing poverty rates, especially in Upper Egypt.

El-Said also pointed out that the financial allocations for the first year of the second phase of the Decent Life initiative amount to 150 billion pounds, distributed among various activities included in the initiative such as: drinking water and sanitation projects, health, education, gas, establishing youth centers, electricity, internal roads, extending fiber optics, rehabilitating irrigation channels and bridges, establishing main roads, and government complexes.

El-Said emphasized that the plan for the coming fiscal year includes continuing efforts to “green” the investment plan, reaching a percentage of 50% green public investments, and focusing on increasing the contribution of projects adapting to climate change from 22% to 35%. She also highlighted the most important adaptation and mitigation projects within the plan for the coming fiscal year, such as: the electric high-speed train, the metro, the monorail project in the new administrative capital and 6th of October City, new and renewable energy stations, equipping industrial zones, replacing and renewing industrial security systems and environmental protection, solid waste system, disposing of hazardous medical waste, nature protection and reserve management, and greening main roads.

El-Said also referred to the role played by the economic development plan for the coming fiscal year in implementing the National Strategy for Human Rights, including ensuring the right to education, health, social security, culture, adequate housing, providing employment opportunities, and providing safe drinking water, as well as ensuring the rights of women, children, and youth.