Egyptian media host Ibrahim Eissa said that Egypt’s current economic crisis requires that the state step away from the economy to allow investors to do their work and help bring a major change.
During his show “Hadith al-Qahera” (Cairo Talk), broadcast on al-Qahera Wal Nas (Cairo and the People) satellite channel on Friday, Eissa said that the government production represents a burden on investment, and on the state itself.
He stressed that the state entered the economy in order to save it, explaining that “The state must exit the economy now in order to awaken it, and just as it entered with great enthusiasm, it must exit from it with great enthusiasm.”
Ibrahim Eissa added that state companies must be put for sale through thinking like an investor and not the government.
The International Monetary Fund asked Egypt to reduce the army’s interference in the economy, according to a rescue plan agreed upon by the fund with the Egyptian authorities, in light of the high inflation rates, according to a report by the Financial Times newspaper, entitled “Egypt vows to cut military’s outsized role in economy under IMF bailout.”
The newspaper said that Egypt has committed to reducing the role of the army in the economy as part of the three billion bailout package offered by the IMF, at a time when the country is struggling to cope with a crisis of foreign currency shortage, weak pound, and high inflation rates.
The fund said in a statement that the “critical” structural reforms approved by Cairo include “reconciling the situation between the public and private sectors” as part of the state ownership policy approved by Egypt President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
The report explained that the policy would cover all state-owned companies, including “military-owned companies”.
