Sherif Ismail Chairs Ministerial Economic Commission Meeting

The economic ministerial committee meeting today headed by engineer Sherif Ismail, President of the Council of Ministers, in the presence of Mr. Tarek Amer, the governor of the Central Bank, where the Committee agreed in principle that the proposed price of maize crop of peasants to be $2100 pounds per ton, where it was stressed that the decision comes in the light of the plan of the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation to expand cultivation of maize from the season of the year 2016, encouraging farmers to the turnout from agriculture through the identification of price before the start of the cultivation of new crop.

Ambassador Hussam Alkawesh the official spokesman for the presidency of the Council of Ministers, stated that the minister of agriculture made a presentation of a report during the meeting, during which he confirmed that the government aimed at increasing the acreage of corn half a million acres to 1 million feddans from 2016 to reach the area to 2 million feddans in 2018, and clarified that this comes on the basis of the recommendations of the national campaign for the advancement of harvest yellow maize to contribute to the provision of a large part of the needs of the local market, reducing imports and alleviate the pressure on the hard currency, where Egypt imports 7.3 million tons of maize and unnecessary poultry industry including at least 1.6 billion dollars annually, he pointed out that farmers' awareness of the importance of the cultivation of maize instead of consuming crops of water, and clarify the proceeds which would accrue to them and to the national economy.

On the other hand, the Committee approved in the economic ministerial meeting in principle to provide the necessary funding to finalize the plans for the delivery of natural gas and the number of 1.2 million units of urban and rural areas and in various governorates of the Republic during the coming period, at a total cost of up to about 3.9 billion pounds.

It was pointed out that this decision comes in the light of the State plan to raise the rates of natural gas delivery of housing units in the various governorates of the Republic during the financial year of 2016/2017, as well as reduction of support to the butane gas to ease the burden on the state budget, which had included the approval to increase the value adopted to implement this plan, with facilities that could be provided to customers, including coordination with the central bank to develop rules of low-interest installments . The President of the Council of Ministers and the minister of housing and petroleum , will work to connect the services of natural gas for about 900 thousand residential units within the draft social housing plan in many governorates, to connect equipment at the same time during the early stages of construction and implementation.

On the other side in the framework of the implementation of the projects required within the urgent plan to strengthen the network in the unified electric grid to face the summer of 2016, the Committee approved the economic ministerial committee on the functioning of the Egyptian Company for Transporting Electricity in the procedures for contracting with companies group power cables – EGYPTEC- cables - the Egyptian Company for networks of Chinese super voltage for the implementation of the projects for the supply and installation of cable voltage of 220 kv as well as optical fiber cables, linking a number of stations of the switches on the projects relating to the implementation of new lines underground station.

The Committee also agreed on the functioning of the Egyptian Company for Transporting Electricity and to end of the contracting with the Swedish company to implement voltage lines of 500 kv along 358 km away.

This comes in the light of the urgent need to implement the projects included in the urgent plan to strengthen the electric network to face summer of 2016, as well as appropriate prices made by companies according to the orders of the supply and installation of in such missions which had been contracted by the Egyptian Company for Transporting Electricity, as well as the precedent business expertise developed for the implementation of such projects.

It was pointed out that the electricity sector projects comes on top of the developmental projects that are being implemented at the national level for the services provided to citizens and to ensure the continued development, emphasis had been placed on the importance of the study of the implementation of the electricity sector projects through new means of financing, including providing the necessary amounts of projects, and to ease the burden on the state budget, it was also noted that the investment budget of the Egyptian Company for Transporting Electricity during the financial year of 2015/2016 about against 2.750 billion pounds, at a time when the investments required for the implementation of projects relating to the electricity grid of about 13.3 billion pounds.

The meeting was attended by the ministers of planning, supply, electricity, agriculture, international cooperation, petrolium, trade, industry, finance, tourism, investment, and the business sector.