UPDATED: Egypt spends $400 b within 7 years to escape poverty trap – Sisi

During a session held under the rubric “Developmental experiments in the face of poverty”, as part of proceedings of the third day of World Youth Forum (WYF) on Wednesday, President Abdel Fattah El Sisi said that Egypt was about to totally collapse in 2011, noting that after a year of holding the elections, the people took to the streets to protest against the government and its performance.

President Sisi asked “What does this have to do with poverty?”, saying that when he took the responsibility as the president, he put combating poverty as a top priority.

“There was no other solution,”he said, pointing out to the importance of working hard and with perseverance.

President Sisi also referred to the strenuous efforts exerted by the Egyptian State over the past seven years, adding that as many as $400 billion was spent during this period in order to get out from the poverty trap.

The president further said that 4,500 companies worked over the last seven years in one of the sectors, with total agreements worth more than 1 trillion pounds.

Talking about the Covid-19 and its repercussions, President Sisi said that before the pandemic, the world was celebrating the exit of 1 billion people from the scrouge of proverty.

After the pandemic took place, it was essential to preserve this number in order not to return again to poverty.

President Sisi said that Egypt managed to deal effectively with the adverse repercussions of the pandemic.

Egypt took a balanced stance between adopting preventive measures, implementing temporary closure and also following non-stop the working system, he explained, adding that poverty is way more dangerous than the pandemic.

Poverty destroys the present and future and is directly related to terrorism, President Sisi said.

Talking about establishing an institution specialised in providing services to homeless and poor people, President Sisi said that more than million people suffer from difficult conditions in the streets.

He also pointed out to the efforts exerted by the state and the Long Live Egypt Fund in order to establish nearly 300,000 housing units.

The state is looking forward to establishing one million housing units, he said.

He, meanwhile, pointed out to the high cost needed in order to implement this plan, which aims to escape poverty trap.