Sisi Urges Achieving Self-Sufficiency in Local Products

President Abdel Fattah El Sisi met Saturday with Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly and Minister of Trade and Industry Nevine Gamea and discussed efforts to encourage replacing imports with domestic production.

Bassam Rady, the presidential spokesman, said that the meeting discussed developments in the industrial complexes being established nationwide.

Sisi gave directives for promoting domestic production and strengthening efforts to localize technology in order to meet the needs of the local market, in light of the increasing production requirements of national projects in all fields.

"Sisi stressed that fostering local production would help bridge the gap between exports and imports and achieve self-sufficiency in local products, thus reducing the import bill for industry inputs in particular," Rady added.

The president also called for conducting a comprehensive review and making the precise enumeration of the land plots that were previously allocated to the industrial activities and have not been exploited.

In this regard, Sisi called for studying the best ways to well use these land plots, considering the actual investment and development needs of each governorate.

For his part, Gamea presented the on-the-ground status of the industrial complexes underway in all the governorates of Egypt. She also presented the follow-up efforts pertaining to the implementation of the target activities in these complexes and the actual achievement rates in them.

She also showcased the operational steps taken by the Ministry of Trade to encourage dependence on local industry. These steps were taken by the Ministry of Trade and Industry in cooperation and coordination with all concerned government agencies.

It was further noted that these efforts aim to boost local production to provide the national development projects with their requirements, especially those related to the development of the villages of the Egyptian countryside.

The steps taken also would help support small and medium enterprises in accordance with the economic fundamentals and investment opportunities in each village.