Sisi: Egypt faced great challenges, but successes were greater

CAIRO – Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El Sisi said the State faced great challenges over the past years, however it achieved greater successes.

Speaking at the Egyptian Family Iftar banquet on Tuesday, the president vowed to be as honest as always with Egyptians and loyal to the homeland.

President Sisi greeted Egyptian Muslims and Christians on Easter and the approach of Eid ul-Fitr.

The president explained that the incidents shown on TV series El Ekhteyar 3 (The Choice 3) which depicts the events Egypt witnessed in the years following the January 25 Revolution, were real.

President Sisi said the support provided by Arab countries in 2013 and afterwards has contributed to preserving the Egyptian State.

Delivering a speech at the Egyptian Family Iftar banquet, Sisi said Egypt ran out of foreign currency reserves in a period fraught with crises that no president would have been able to overcome.

Egyptian citizens have borne the consequences of implementing an ambitious and necessary program for economic reform, which was implemented in tandem with rebuilding and developing the State’s infrastructure, the president noted.

In this regard, he said Egypt’s development steps have been firm and steady and its will to realize progress unwavering.

During the banquet, Sisi greeted Sinai chieftains and thanked them for their cooperation with the State.

“We target achieving real development in Sinai,” the president said.

He greeted Egyptian women for their great role in serving the nation.

The president went on to say that Egypt suffered losses worth USD 37 billion in less than 24 months because of the turmoil that followed 2011, noting that the army spent EGP one billion monthly for seven years to eradicate terrorism.

With regard to the losses that the State incurred following the 2011 incidents, the president said Egypt’s credit rating retreated six times from 2011 to 2013.

He added that the cases of encroachments on agriculture lands from 2011 to 2013 reached 35,000.

The president noted that this period witnessed a hike in unemployment rates, in addition to a sharp decline in the country’s foreign reserves.

President Sisi hailed the great financial support by Arab states between 2013 and 2014, saying that they provided Egypt with tens of billions of dollars to support the country’s economy.

He asserted that the State managed to overcome the coronavirus crisis and would be able to deal with the Russian-Ukrainian crisis.