Population growth in Egypt has to be cut to 400K per annum: President Sisi

CAIRO – 5 September 2023: President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi launched Tuesday the first edition of the Global Congress on Population, Health, and Development held in the New Administrative Capital on September 5-8.

President Sisi pointed out that although the resources in Africa are massive, they would not be enough to match the expected population growth on the continent as its size might exceed 1.6 billion.

Speaking of Egypt, the chief of state said that the resources of the country had been affected badly by the seven wars it fought over the past 70 years, which had its toll on the developmental process, including the quality of education. He underscored that a major factor in remedying that problem was cutting the annual population growth to 400,000 down from two million.

The Egyptian president referred to the Chinese experience with controlling the population growth until stabilizing the economy and accomplishing development.

"People revolted in 2011 because they felt that the government had not been doing enough. Nevertheless, it’s a shared responsibility. We spent LE10 trillion on infrastructure to contain overpopulation. We cannot continue like that," President Sisi stipulated.

The president attended a panel discussion titled “Population Growth and the Future of Healthcare,” and moderated by Egyptian Minister of Health and Population Khaled Abdel Ghaffar

During the session, President Sisi shed light on regulating the travel of workers from countries having self-sufficiency of labor to other countries facing a shortage, which would be a win-win situation for either parties.