President Abdel Fattah El Sisi Meets With the President of the World Bank Group

The President congratulated Mr. Malpass for assuming his new post and expressed his appreciation for choosing Egypt to be among the first countries to visit. The President confirmed the keenness to continue the fruitful cooperation between Egypt and the World Bank to assist the country's developmental endeavors.

This is in addition to the importance that Egypt attached to developing relations with the World Bank Group, as one of Egypt's most important partners for development, as well as expanding cooperation to include many projects across different developmental fields. The President emphasized that the state is adopting an approach that depends on good management and making the best use of available financial resources to realize development.

Mr. Malpass confirmed Egypt's key role in Africa and the Middle East and noted its success in overcoming challenges with a strong political will and the people's solidarity, including the implementation of the comprehensive economic and social reform program that resulted in positive outcomes. These include increasing growth rates, reducing the budget deficit, decreasing unemployment rates and controlling inflation. This is in addition to implementing a number of mega national projects to push forward development efforts, setting Egypt as a successful example for achieving security and stability. Mr. Malpass applauded the achievements and projects that he has seen firsthand during his visit to Egypt, especially the Benban project for solar energy. He also confirmed the World Bank's keenness to continue implementing and developing cooperation programs with Egypt, in addition to assisting the developmental projects in Africa in light of Egypt's chairmanship of the African Union.

The meeting reviewed the latest developments pertinent to implementing the economic reform program and progress achieved in the sectors of energy, health, education and the infrastructure and housing, especially building 250,000 units to accommodate nearly one million people living in unsafe areas and the positive results this project yielded in terms of providing a decent life as well as contributing to countering terrorism and extremism that exploit the harsh living conditions.

President El Sisi and Mr. Malpass discussed steps implemented in the framework of the social safety net to alleviate the burden on the citizens, being one of the main pillars of the economic reform program. The meeting also touched on progress made on the national projects that offer job opportunities especially to the youth, reshape Egypt's developmental map and attract more investment. This is while taking into account that these efforts are carried out in tandem with efforts to restore security and stability, counter-terrorism, and control the borders as well as Egypt undertaking its active role in its unstable regional surrounding.

They also discussed means to develop cooperation between Egypt and the World Bank across various fields, especially the infrastructure, in addition to completing an integrated and advanced system for human development, working on the development of the neediest areas, implementing the technical support programs to assist the government's restructure efforts so as to encourage industry and export activities and to increase the percentage and value of private and foreign investment.

This is in addition to cooperating in the sectors of health, education, SMEs, new and renewable energy, digital economy, transport, agriculture, and water desalination and treatment.