4,000 Plants to Create 200,000 Jobs

Prime Minister Hisham Qandil met on 27/09/2012 with several Cabinet ministers as well as the Secretary General of Social Fund for Development at which they discussed means of facing the unemployment problem as well as preparing a national program for employment and training during the coming period in cooperation with the private sector. The government is concerned with unemployment whose rates currently hit 13%, Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Ashraf al-Arabi said in a press release. He asserted that the government aims to decrease the unemployment rates to 9.5% by 2017 and 6% by 2022. For his part, Industry and Trade Minister Hatem Saleh said that the ministry will allocate this year up to 20 million square meters of land for the building of 4,000 factories. The Minister noted that this would create some 200,000 jobs. He expects that 700,000 new jobs will be filled this year especially in the textile sector.