Maintaining stability is essential for attracting investment
Egypt, Politics, 11/8/2001

The Egyptian Prime Minister Atef Ebeid said the government's main concern is to achieve security, and stability for the people in order to attract more investments and provide more jobs.

He also underlined the government's support for the armed forces and police in order to protect the homeland and citizens.

Speaking Wednesday to the first meeting of the Shura Council at its new parliamentary session, Ebeid said that stability is a goal "from which we shall not deviate and a mainstay to attract investments, protecting the livelihood of people and deepening the feeling of security among citizens."

Ebeid hoped that the new session will usher a new era in parliamentary life and praised the constructive contribution of the Council.

"You have added a lot to many laws and paved the way for the stability of dealings and the balance between rights and duties," He told Shura Council members.

Ebeid said that there has been a drop in the deficit between our resources and our use of foreign currency.

It dropped from 1100 million dollars to only 33 million dollars in the fiscal year that ended on June 30.

Achievements have spread to villages, hamlets and even to haphazard areas to serve people of limited income.

This year, an ambitious plan will be carried out to employ 800,000 young graduates of both sexes.

An ambitious plan will be carried out to modernize establishments of production services and rationalize cost in order to increase our ability to have a presence in world markets.

"A plan will be carried out to control the rate of birth and, consequently, population growth," Ebeid said.

Ebeid said the first concern of the government has been -- and shall continue to be -- to stress stability, security and safety for organizations and individuals on the land of Egypt, whatever are their identities, nationalities or creeds.

He said that the security of the nation is realized by maintaining armed forces capable of deterrence and alert police, and justice under the leadership of President Hosni Mubarak.

"Our second, and urgent, concern is to maintain the achievements on the way of the Egyptian economic reform," Ebeid said.

Foremost among these achievements is to balance between resources and expenditure by carrying out effective policies to increase resources and reduce expenditure.

"This was necessary and imperative to honour responsibility, and the soundness of our plans has been confirmed by international organizations," Ebeid said.

But the ship of development met with adverse winds. Tragic and new circumstances imposed on the world a clear recession in economic activity, a drop in trade and a painful drop in the number of passengers and those who seek tourism and reluctance to invest in developing countries.

Ebeid continued: we took urgent steps to study the new conditions and their impact on our country.

We were joined in these studies by national and international research institutions.

The Council of Ministers adopted recommendations that will be presented to parliament.

The situation is not grave but calls for awareness and an exchange of views.

"We look forward to many meetings with you," The Prime Minister told members of the Shura Council.

A cabinet source said the government will submit a wide array of legislations to the People's Assembly in its new session such as bills on combating money laundering, facilitating real estate mortgage measures, and new economic zones and taxes.

Previous Stories:
  Mubarak receives British secretary of State for defense   (11/7/2001)
  Mubarak highly concerned with promoting relations with EU   (11/7/2001)
  Hoon lauds Egypt's role in combating terrorism   (11/7/2001)

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