Efforts made during past 10 years aimed at building Egypt’s ability to take off, President Sisi

CAIRO – 10 January 2025: President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi said on Friday that the state's components and elements are what determine its ability to provide services and provide an appropriate standard of living for citizens.

He explained that “it’s not always related to political will and the government's will only,” Sisi said during an open dialogue with the Egyptian Military Academy, students that “there is no doubt that any official want to provide the best for his people, the whole idea is whether the circumstances and capabilities we have can achieve this for us or not."

He noted to the past 10 years, saying that, Egypt has gone through a lot, starting with the political events in 2011 and 2011, adding: “everything must have an impact and cost.”

During these years, the President said the Central Bank's reserves were completely exhausted; “these reserves represents the state's economic capacity to meet its needs within a number of months”, Sisi said. “Therefore, we have put in place a very large program to prepare the Egyptian state to launch with modern standards.”

“Such as developing the road network,” President Sisi added, explaining that the issue is bigger than that. “This is a comprehensive plan that also includes everything else, such as the energy, for example.”

Developing power sector

The Egyptian President shed light on the power sector since 10 years ago, saying that Egypt had  a crisis before 2014 in the power generation stations. “In order to make electricity, you have to do three things: produce the energy itself and we didn’t have enough stations, a network to transfer this production, and control stations to regulate the performance of this network, so that when a problem occurs, we can’t regulate the electricity in one way or another,”

He added, “This is only one sector and we can talk about sectors. Electricity production has decreased; however, the government sells power to citizens at a quarter of its price,”

“A gas cylinder costs LE 325-340, and is sold for LE 150, meaning less than half its price. How many cylinders per year we sell,  about 300 million cylinders per year,” Sisi said

He noted that the program set by the Egyptian state aims to achieve the ability to launch a better future, and “we have made a great effort during the past period as a result of the stagnation of the wheel of real development for many years, and we are able to work, change and grow. "

President Sisi added, during his inspection of the Egyptian Military Academy: “During the past 10 years, the state has been rehabilitated and built and achieved developments.”

Water poverty

“If we talk about the problem of water and irrigation, The volume of water that we are treating with advanced triple treatment, I can give you three examples: Al-Mahsama station, that treats one million cubic meters of water per day, and Bahr Al-Baqar station that treats 5.7 million cubic meters of water per day and July 3 station that treats 7.5 million cubic meters of water per day. These are only 3 examples.

Well, we can benefit from these stations. The water we have is not a lot, and we suffer from water poverty. We will not be able to supply water only by water treatment or seawater desalination and we are working on both files,” Sisi said.

“Some may wonder why we do not feel the impact? the President asked,  

He answered that all the effort made during the past 10 years was “to build the state's ability to take off”

New 4.5 million agricultural acres

“We have increased the agricultural area by 4.5 million acres during the past years, using modern irrigation systems and modern agricultural systems.

Will we feel the impact of all these projects later? Yes, but not as we hope because in 2011 the population was 80 million and now it is about 107 million, meaning an increase of 27 million.

People think that the state can live a good life without hard work, Countries can be like this if we have many resources. But few resources need work and more work.” Sisi said.

Developing transportation

The Egyptian president confirmed on Friday that developing the transportation sector costs LE 2 trillion.

He noted that developing electricity, also coasted another two trillion pounds.

A “plan had to be put in place and implemented through knowledge, planning and sacrifice in order to get out of the current situation,” Sisi explained.

$7 billion loss

President Sisi said that the Egyptian state lost $7 billion in direct income from the Suez Canal during the past 11 months, and despite that, the International Monetary Fund announced that the economic path in Egypt is good.

He added, “This amount could have been pumped into many sectors in the Egyptian state, but these are the effects of the war,”

Sisi affirmed that all projects implemented in Egypt during the past period were by Egyptian companies.

He also noted that the government has doubled the number of universities in Egypt in 10 years and sought to make them globally competitive.

Gaza war

Regarding the developments taking place in the Gaza war, “our efforts began on October 7th in an attempt to contain the escalation, contain the war and reach a ceasefire, and we were saying that there are three constants that we are working on in this matter: stopping the war, releasing the hostages, and bringing in aid."

 President Sisi added, "We were talking as a result of the great extent of destruction and fighting, every five to ten years, the same thing happens, we wanted to discuss “the day after ending the war,” and we were not doing it alone, we are not the only decisive factor in it, we succeeded sometimes in stopping the war, and we were able to bring in aid for 8 months, and the largest part of it was from Egypt."

President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi spoke about the aid provided by Egypt to the Syrian state, saying: "This aid is from the Egyptian Red Crescent, and we are trying to be a positive factor in allowing an opportunity for all the spectrums present in Syria, so that all forces, ethnicities, remain partners in the government."

President El-Sisi added during his conversation with the students of the Egyptian Military Academy: “there is up to one and a half million Syrian in Egypt, and they are honored guests, and as much as God enables us, we provide them.”