Egypt, UN in talks over financing development projects among 2018/2022 deal

Egypt’s Investment Minister Sahar Nasr discussed the United Nations’ support for development projects in the country during talks with the organisation’s Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed in New York on Tuesday, the investment ministry said in a statement.

The talks on Tuesday discussed the organisation’s planned support for projects in the border Sinai region and the country’s south– home to some of the country’s most impoverished areas– including in the fields of water and sewage, education, healthcare and women’s empowerment.

The push is part of a $1.2 billion deal signed with the global organisation in March 2018 and runs until 2022.

During the talks, the Egyptian minister stressed on Egypt’s efforts to boost the role of the private sector in development projects.

She underscored legislative reforms the government has been pushing forward to improve the investment climate in Egypt and lure back investors who were scared away by years of political instability. This includes a long-delayed investment law passed in 2017 with a view of streamlining doing business in Egypt.

The talks were held on the sidelines of a UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) forum on financing development at the UN headquarters in New York.

The ministry’s statement said that Mohammed has praised the economic reform programme Egypt adopted three years ago, saying that the country has set a leading example of economic reforms, namely in the African continent.

Egypt’s tough economic reform measures include a sharp currency devaluation, deep cuts in energy subsidies and the introduction of a value-added tax. The reforms, tied to a three-year $12 billion International Monetary Fund loan programme that began in 2016, have strained the budgets of millions of Egyptians.

Source: Ahram Online