Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs Hussein Eissa plans to revise the “national narrative” the government had launched last year and to put forward a new framework for the period ahead, an informed source at the Finance Ministry told Al Manassa.
In September, the government announced the launch of the “National Narrative for Economic Development,” aiming to set a vision for managing the economy after Egypt’s IMF loan program ends this year.
Egypt has turned to successive IMF programs since 2016, with total financing exceeding $20 billion, making it among the world’s largest borrowers from the institution. The current IMF program, which began in 2022, will end in November.
The local currency weakened sharply over the course of the program, drawing criticism, including a call by former investment minister Mahmoud Mohieldin to adopt a “different economic path.”
The Finance Ministry source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that under the new deputy prime minister, a “new, updated, and more developed national narrative will be drafted” to replace the one prepared by Rania Al-Mashat.
In the new cabinet lineup announced last week, Ahmed Rostom took over as planning and economic development minister. Rostom, who previously worked as a World Bank financial expert, succeeds Al-Mashat, who had held the planning, economic development, and international cooperation portfolio in the previous government.
The source said that after the first meeting of the new government’s economic group on Monday evening, Eissa began preparing an amended “State Ownership Policy” document, adding that “recent economic changes require updating the framework governing the state’s role in the economy in line with current developments.”
Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly, who chaired the meeting, urged building on the state’s economic narrative and developing it within a national program running through 2030 that sets the course of Egypt’s economy in the coming years, especially in the post-IMF program phase.
The government launched its State Ownership Policy document in 2022, setting targets for the state to exit specified economic activities after the IMF criticized the state for crowding out the private sector over the past decade. But the Fund has repeatedly criticized the slow pace of meeting agreed privatization targets.
The source said a core goal in Eissa’s strategic vision is “increasing the private sector’s contribution across a wide range of economic activities,” while setting a cap on government investment in different sectors to ensure private-sector contributions reach at least 80% of total investment.
The Planning Ministry said in November that the private sector’s share of investment stood at about 66%.
The source said the deputy prime minister has a plan to begin offering government stakes in around 31 companies after the Eid El-Fitr holiday at the end of March, including 20 companies that previously belonged to the Public Business Sector Ministry and 11 others, five of them affiliated with the armed forces.
After the Public Business Sector Ministry was abolished in the latest reshuffle, nearly 40 of the 60 companies that had been under the ministry will be transferred to Egypt’s sovereign fund, in preparation for restructuring and listing them on the stock exchange in the period ahead, as part of a state push to expand the private sector’s role in economic activity and support the development track, the source concluded.
