Egypt’s El-Sisi calls for addressing debt problem of developing countries

CAIRO - 10 September 2023: At the closing session of the G20 summit in New Delhi, India, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi called for the urgent need to address the debt problem of developing countries, which has taken on dangerous dimensions, as a result of the high burdens of debt service, not only in low-income countries but also in middle-income countries.

“This requires prompt and decisive resolutions to prevent the outbreak of a global debt crisis,” said President El-Sisi.

According to the Global Economic Data, Indicators, Charts , and Forecasts (CEIC), Egypt’s external debt reached $165.4 billion in March 2023, compared to $162.9 billion in the previous quarter of the same year.

The president also called for climate financing in order to achieve sustainable development, saying “Our commitment to the Sustainable Development Agenda and the goals of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change requires us to ensure the availability of the necessary financing and improve the international financing system as well as the practices of multilateral development banks. This can be achieved by boosting their lending capacity, particularly through providing concessional financing, while ensuring that climate finance will not come at the expense of development finance.”

“I would like to reiterate, in Egypt’s capacity as COP27 chair, the importance of providing the means for implementation, in terms of funding, through the fulfillment of the developed countries’ commitments, in addition to the transfer of technology,” El-Sisi continued.

President El-Sisi said that to ensure a better future for humanity in its entirety, we need to bridge the huge technological gap among countries, so that technological progress is not an additional driver of inequality.

“It is no secret that concerns have been growing for years with regard to the impact of automation and Artificial Intelligence, AI, on the future of employment,” he stated, noting that automation and AI doubled negative social and economic impact on developing countries that rely on labor-intensive industries.

“I have full confidence in your ability to take the necessary steps to achieve our common goals and put them into force,” the president concluded his speech.