Egypt's road projects led to a decrease in accidents: Planning Minister

CAIRO - 25 October 2020: Egypt’s Minister of Planning and Economic Development, Hala El-Said said that the state’s tendency to increase spending on roads and bridges in Egypt since 2018 has contributed to the decrease in the number of deaths resulting from road accidents during 2020.

El-Said explained that the results of the investments that have been poured into roads and bridges in the past four years were evident in the last two years from 2018 to 2020 as road accident deaths decreased by 5 percent in 2018/2019 and by 44 percent in 2019/2020.

“With an increase in the rate of change in investment on roads and bridges from 2018 to 2020 to 97 percent, the rate of change in the number of road accident deaths decreased to 46 percent,” El-Said clarified.

El-Said asserted that the state has paid great attention to the transportation sector, including the road and bridges network, explaining that investments in roads and bridges amounted to about LE 14 billion in 2018, bringing the proportion of investments to LE 26 billion in 2019 and then to about LE 28 billion in 2020, which contributed to a decrease in the number of deaths due to road accidents to 12,000 in 2019 and 7,000 in 2020, compared to 13,000 in 2018.

The Minister of Planning stressed the importance of the transport sector as one of the most important sectors in the state’s plan, due to its connection with the services that the citizen feels directly through the national projects for roads, bridges, subway lines, railways, the projects of the Egyptian Authority for the Safety of Maritime Navigation and other services provided by the sector to the citizen.

El-Said pointed out that Egypt during the previous period was able to achieve a great leap in the field of infrastructure, especially in the services of the transport sector.

She noted that Egypt managed to improve its position in the field of roads, as it jumped 90 places according to the classification of international competitiveness in the field of road quality, where it jumped from the 118th position in 2014 to become It is ranked 28 in 2019.