Egypt gives top priority to developing labour market, increasing competitiveness of workers: Hala El-Said

Daily News Egypt
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Hala El-Said, Minister of Planning and Economic Development, stressed that the Egyptian state gives top priority to developing the labour market and increasing the competitiveness of Egyptian workers both locally and abroad, especially young people as they represent 65% of the total population.

El-Said’s remarks came during the opening session of a conference, entitled “The Role of Remittances in Increasing Investments and Achieving Sustainable Development”. The event was organized by the Ministry of State for Immigration and Egyptians Expatriates’ Affairs in cooperation with the International Organization for Migration (IOM). 

She said that the Egyptian state is increasing public investments by focusing on some promising sectors that represent a key pillar to drive growth in the coming stage, such as the sectors of health services and medical supplies, agriculture, food industries, communications, and information technology, construction and manufacturing, and manufacturing industries.

In this context, the state aims to increase public investments, in a way that reflects the priorities imposed by the Corona crisis, especially the health and education sectors, as they are the main tool for development and building human capacities and the main entrance to the progress of society.

El-Said highlighted the increase in remittances, which continued its growth and upward trend, to $31.4bn in 2020/21 (representing more than a third of the total foreign exchange sources in the last two years), achieving a growth rate of 13% compared to 2019/20.

El-Said added that the state worked to revitalize the economy by increasing incomes and increasing investments in priority sectors, which included providing a stimulus package of about EGP 100bn (2% of GDP), in addition to adopting stimulus monetary and fiscal policies.

The state has also expanded in following social protection measures, such as the national project for the development of the Egyptian countryside, “A Decent Life” in its first and second phases, to enhance the state’s efforts to localize sustainable development goals and achieve balanced regional development, which is one of the main pillars of Egypt’s Vision 2030.

The state also attaches great importance to the telecommunications sector, information technology, and digitization infrastructure, in the context of strengthening the trend towards digital transformation and intensifying investments in this field. 

El-Said referred to a set of proactive policies taken by the Egyptian state to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, out of keenness to achieve a balance between preserving the health of the citizen and continuing the economic activity.

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