“The private sector is key and core to Egypt’s sustainable development and social cohesion,” Minister of Planning, Hala El-Said, stated Sunday.

El-Said noted that the national structural reform program has four main pillars, the first one focuses on the real side of the economy which is: manufacturing, agriculture, and information and communications technology (ICT).

She added that these three sectors are private sector-led, in addition to 2 other sectors in which Egypt has a competitive edge which are tourism and logistics.

This came during the Minister of Planning’s participation in a panel discussion on “Public meets Private Sector: Unlocking Sustainable Investment in Egypt” during the International Finance Corporation (IFC) day in Egypt. The session was attended by Mohamed Maait, Minister of Finance, Rania Al-Mashat, Minister of International Cooperation, and Tarek Tawfik, President of the American Chamber of Commerce.

According to the minister, enhancing the role of the private sector and raising the efficiency of the labor market are also pillars of the structural reform program.

She said that the government focuses on minimizing the gap between the demand and the supply.

“We are looking to the social safety net, not from the financial poverty, but from a multidimensional poverty perspective,” El-Said said, noting that focusing on the social safety net is ensuring the safety and sustainability of this country which is also very important for the private sector to ensure the safety and stability of the country.

El-Said highlighted the implemented reforms focusing on two phases of reforms; the first one which started on 2016 and in this phase, the government focused basically on the fiscal and the monetary side, in addition to investing in the infrastructure,

It was very important to invest in infrastructure because no private sector will come to a country that has no road gateway that has no port network, El- Said said, adding that the government invested a lot in our infrastructure, and we focused on the fiscal and monetary side,” El-Said.

The second phase was focusing more on the inside and enhancing the role of the private sector, El-Said added.

She announced that the private sector share investment increased from almost 30 percent two years ago, to around 40 percent share of investment this fiscal year with the aim to reach 50 percent next year.

Egypt is having a ceiling on its public investment in order to give way more for the private sector to invest, the planning minister added.

Private sector share in the gross domestic product (GDP) has increased since 2014, from 60- 64 percent to 71 percent this year, El-Said.

She said that the private sector share of employment reached 80 percent coming up from almost 65 percent in 2013/2014.

As for the structural reform agenda to enhance the role of the private sector, she said that the government has simplified its own procedures in the investment law. and have amended the competition law.

She added that Egypt has also issued a law to abolish all privileges given to any other institution, and it has issued the state ownership policy.

“We also amended the PPP law, the public private sector, public private partnership law, in order to simplify and enhance the procedures,” El-Said said, adding that the government has established the sovereign funds of Egypt that is working closely with the unit at the cabinet in order to divest during the past few years.

According to the minister, the government has divested the sovereign fund which helped to divest shares in more than 10 companies worth about $5 billion.

“The total divestiture during the past 1.5 years is almost about $5.6 billion,” she announced.