Planning Ministry of Planning Reviews Urban Development Targets for Fiscal Year 23/2024

The Ministry of Planning and Economic Development reviewed in a report its targets for the current fiscal year 23/2024 in the field of urban development. Dr. Hala El Said, Minister of Planning and Economic Development, emphasized that the current fiscal year plan takes into account the Cabinet's decisions to rationalize spending regarding entities included in the state's general budget and public economic bodies for the fiscal year 23/2024.

El Said stated that Egypt has witnessed a real leap in urban development over the past eight years, manifested through the government's diligent efforts to launch new urban communities, develop desert areas outside the Nile Valley to accommodate the rapid population growth, alleviate pressure on Cairo and overcrowded cities, and address the phenomenon of random settlements. In this context, the state has set three main objectives to achieve comprehensive urban development, by increasing the inhabited area in line with available resources and population size and distribution. This objective is divided into two parts: achieving balance in population distribution between current and future inhabited areas, and maximizing development returns in new areas to make them attractive to inhabitants, in addition to improving the quality of the urban environment. This goal is linked to addressing worsening urban problems, primarily random settlements, and reflects the state's approach in achieving a "country without slums" through projects like the "Asmarat Neighborhood," as well as developing infrastructure services in rural and urban areas alike, maximizing Egypt's strategic regional and international position by increasing Egypt's connectivity with the external world, and expanding strategic projects attractive to local and foreign investments.

Regarding the targeted investments for the sector, El Said pointed out that the total targeted investments for the urban development sector - including real estate activities, water and sanitation, and construction - amount to about 272.4 billion Egyptian pounds, representing 16.5% of the total targeted investments for the 23/2024 plan. Investments directed towards water and sanitation projects lead with approximately 43.8% (119.3 billion Egyptian pounds).

The report of the Ministry of Planning and Economic Development clarified that the sector's most important targets include completing and finishing 624 drinking water and sanitation projects, including 73 projects targeted for completion during the plan year, and 551 projects currently under completion, in addition to social housing projects where the plan aims to complete and finish 176 thousand units and start 130 thousand units, with a total of 306 thousand housing units.

The report also highlighted the main directions of sector investments, which include rationalizing government spending by excluding new projects that have not yet started implementation except for urgent and essential projects in hot areas, focusing investments on expected completion projects and completion projects with an execution rate exceeding 70%, inclusion of drinking water and sanitation projects in the investment plan for villages targeted in the second and third phases of the "Decent Life" initiative according to priorities and urgent needs determined by the Holding Company for Drinking Water and Sanitation, as well as divestment from financing projects (water desalination plants, sewage sludge to energy projects associated with sewage projects), in addition to stabilizing or reducing investments directed to projects such as drinking water lifting stations, water distribution networks, sewage collection networks and pumping stations, sewage treatment plants, reuse of treated sewage water, collection, treatment, and recycling of solid waste and sewage, and water and sanitation services, such as billing, meter installation, network management, operation, and maintenance, while allowing private sector participation, and stabilizing or increasing funding for projects (drinking water production plants from surface water sources in the water and sanitation sector), with the allowance of private sector participation.