Ministry of Planning Press Release

Summary of the Meeting with the Ministry of Planning Representatives to Discuss the 2011/2012 Annual Plan "Towards a vision of Egyptian economic" initiative has held its first meeting with the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation of July 27, 2011 which was chaired by Dr. Ashraf el Araby Advisor to the Minister of planning and attended by civil society organizations in the field of (health, education, agriculture), and the Egyptian Businessmen Association, and a coalition of youth revolution, and a number of private sector representatives.

The meeting started began with stressing that the introduction of such initiatives is a strategic move for the Egyptian economy and to activate the means of participatory planning, also spoke at the meeting about the role of the ministry and the problems of planning in Egypt and the importance of activating the role of civil society in this regard.

This was followed by a presentation from the initiative about the shortcomings of planning in Egypt at the macro level and the level of sectors in general and in particular in the framework of the plan 2011-2012. There is also an urgent and pressing need to develop a comprehensive mechanism for monitoring and evaluating the proposed projects and the development impacts of these projects.

In the same context by the Initiative criticized the plan 2011/2012 as the service sector which can be relatively volatile to external factors, acquires the majority of investments, in addition to its contribution by more than half of GDP and a large percentage of employment, and that has caused a significant reduction in the contribution of the agricultural sector expressed in low productivity of the farmer and the lack of food security, as well as the industrial sector which still lags behind and needs massive development.

In terms of human development the initiative discussed the various education and health indicators and the relative importance of each in the plan, which indicates that education and health sectors are still in need of more attention as well as increasing the proportion of spending on education and health from public expenditure . It also discussed the shortcomings of the role of technical education and vocational training, and explained some of these aspects, including the financing of these institutions from the government, and that there are no clear lines of accountability, where you specify the annual budgets based on the level of expenditure in the previous year, and not on the basis of overall performance, as it lacks clear standards for curriculum development and training, and are rarely sufficient budget allocations for the development of equipment, for example, or to advance the standard of quality.

With regard to the sectors of industry and agriculture, the total investments implemented in the sectors of agriculture and industry together amounts to 10% of the total investment during the third quarter of 2010-2011which is extremely modest and thus impede the growth of the those viable sector and their ability to create jobs. This is accompanied by a weak private sector investment in the manufacturing sector, where approximately 6.7% compared to 37.6% in real estate activity along with the concentration of the foreign direct investment in the oil sector .

And during the show, and in the evaluation of the plan, the initiative that raised some concerns about the economic role of the state during the next phase in the absence of a clear of sound and specific vision and the consensus on the role of state-capitalist economy and the absence of intermediary institutions that carries out the regulatory role properly, and under the lack of a strong private sector that is able to take responsibility for its role in the development, and suggested relying on the private sector to lead the development process with special emphasis on the partnership between the public and private sectors in a transparent manner through the development of controls to the government the role of organizer and author of the policy and the observer.

The initiative also stressed that there must be a clear vision about the future of development in Egypt whether we will rely on the service sector as an engine for development of or on the productive sectors that have suffered from long neglect or a re-employment of the service sectors towards commodity production.

It also called for forming an integrated investment map that acts as a strategic benchmark to shed light on specific projects in all sectors and to review investment opportunities in order to support sustainable development. This map, presents all the indicators and guidance for investors, informing them of investment opportunities in economic sectors as well as the sectors in which the State chooses to offer incentives to facilitate investment in the sense it will be a second real plan so as not open the door to any kind of investments.

In addition to re-evaluating of the distribution of infrastructure projects along the various regions and provinces to gain access to a fair distribution of investments in various geographical areas such as areas in Upper Egypt and the Red Sea and Sinai. Also support the implementation of decentralization in the governorates, and the need for completing the development of slums and the Millennium Village Project and the poorest of these areas to become a developed urban areas can attract investments.

The need to use and apply indicators linking education to labor market outcomes, and that the workers accept the pay-productivity index, where the majority of unemployed young people who most of them university graduates, due to poor quality of education in addition to direct graduates to areas with surplus labor ....etc.

At the end of the meeting, we agreed with the audience on a patrol to meet the Joint Commission between civil society and the Ministry of planning on a monthly basis and to set the agenda of the meeting in advance and have a more professional specific meetings either based on sectors (agriculture, industry, human development ..) or in the form of topics (slums, sanitation ,..).

On the other hand we welcomed and invited all young people and civil society organizations and other economic experts and relevant bodies to cooperate with us in order to create an intellectual dialogue to reach a consensus view place Egypt as one of the leading economies.