A high-ranking delegation of the World Bank's (WB) executive directors has visited Egypt.
Egypt’s Minister of International Cooperation Dr. Rania al-Mashat met with the delegation members on Friday to present the economic reform program adopted by the Egyptian government during the period from 2016 till 2019.
They discussed the new cooperation strategy between Egypt and the WB in accordance with the Egyptian government's priorities, as well as the structural and legislative reforms the government will undertake to further empower the private sector and boost investment in human capital, mainly in health, education and social protection sectors.
This is the first visit of its kind since 2014.
The delegation includes Dean of the WB Board of Executive Directors Dr. Merza Hasan, Executive Director at the World Bank Group representing Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, and Sri Lanka Aparna Subramani, World Bank Group Executive Director representing the United Kingdom Richard Montgomery, WB Executive Director for Djibouti Jean-Claude Tchatchouang, Alternate Executive at the Board of the World Bank Group Ragui El-Etreby, and Director of the International Finance Corporation’s office in Egypt Waleed Labadi.
Members of the delegation praised Egypt’s achievements at the global level in development projects, including the solar energy project in Benban, Aswan.
The Benban Solar Project in Aswan is the world’s largest energy project and was chosen by the WB as the best project worldwide.
The delegation is expected to visit the project site, in addition to a number of development projects that it has contributed to through the Takaful and Karama (aka Solidarity and Dignity) and the Social Housing projects.
They said these contribute to attaining sustainable development goals in light of Egypt’s proven ability to overcome many hardships over the past years.
Egypt has also succeeded in implementing its economic reform program, which resulted in an improvement in various economic indicators, the delegation stressed.
It pointed to Egypt’s regional and global rank in terms of the rate of GDP growth, reflecting the growing international confidence in the Egyptian economy.
The delegation members affirmed the WB’s keenness to bolster the growing cooperation frameworks with Egypt and support new development projects.
During the meeting, both sides discussed deepening partnership levels during the coming years as part of the WB’s efforts to achieve sustainable development goals, while supporting the private sector through the International Finance Corporation.
