Sisi in Africa 2019: AU leaders work on building intracontinental infrastructure

CAIRO – 23 November 2019: Leaders of the African Union (AU) are taking a powerful action towards building intracontinental infrastructure connects African countries with each other to participate in enhancing the global economy, said Egyptian President Abdel Fatah El Sisi during a roundtable on the investments in Africa on the sidelines of the Africa 2019 Conference on Saturday.

“Africa’s infrastructure and natural resources represent great opportunities for the investors… African leaders determine and are able to change the continent to a better future for the youth,” he continued. “Development is a human right,” he said.

Development megaproject were not limited to only Cape Town-Cairo Road or VICMED, which aims to connect the Lake Vitoria with the Mediterranean Sea, but also to establish intracontinental infrastructure among more than 50 countries, he continued, shedding light on the importance of the technological and information connection.

President Sisi added that the cost of these projects could be estimated at $200 to $250 billion, calling on the international companies and financing institutions like the World Bank (WB) to invest in these megaprojects.

“Some African countries have been economically developed and the continent has a tremendous leap in the infrastructure sector,” President Sisi said, adding that the investments in this sector would substantially enhance development.

He said that Egypt is tremendously investing in this sector as the state spent LE 4 trillion on the infrastructure projects over the past five years.

President Sisi affirmed that if the developed countries helped the developing states to achieve development, it would result in preventing illegal migration and combating terrorism, saying “the situation should not be tackled only in an economic point of view, but also throughout security and humanitarian perspective,” he said.

“The terrorism kills hope and development, increases unemployment, ruins tourism and paralyzes the state,” he added, noting that Egypt continued its way towards development although it was facing terrorism.

He said that African countries have other fields and sector to which foreign investors could gravitate, noting that African countries that are enriched with mining resources could have an added value throughout manufacturing the raw materials instead of exporting them to other developed countries.

He noted that the absence of manufacturing the raw materials could embody a challenge against the development of these countries.

Sisi praised the efforts exerted by the German Company of Siemens in the Egyptian energy sector, calling for the international companies to take the German company as a model and to invest in other fields like industry and agriculture in Egypt.

Concerning the government’s reform plan for the transportation services, President Sisi said that he had talked with representatives of Uber Company to provide mass transportation service in Egypt amid drafting new legislative laws by the government to facilitate the work of foreign transportation companies in Egypt.

During the roundtable, Minister of Transportation Kamel al-Wazir commented that the government has drafted the Law of Transportation and Information Technology and is being currently discussed in the cabinet.

Under President Sisi’s auspices, Egypt’s Africa 2019 Conference kicked off on Friday, with participation of dignitaries and more than 2,000 international businesspersons, economic experts and entrepreneurs from Egypt and African countries. The two-day conference is being held in the New Administrative Capital.