Speaking at the opening of a factory in Alexandria, Sisi said that
experience would not deter him from pushing through painful reforms.
Egyptian
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi (L) attends during the first anniversary
of launching the New Suez Canal and the 60th anniversary of
nationalizing the Suez Canal in Ismailia, Egypt August 6, 2016 in this
handout picture courtesy of the Egyptian Presidency.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi
said on Saturday he was committed to pushing through the reforms
necessary to turn the economy around and cut public debt, days after
Egypt negotiated a $12 billion loan programme with the International
Monetary Fund.
The IMF said on Thursday it had agreed in principle a three-year facility to support comprehensive government reforms.
But
the deal is subject to final approval by the IMF executive committee,
and disbursement is linked to progress on a variety of reforms. They
include subsidy cuts, the introduction of value added tax (VAT) and a
shift to a more flexible exchange rate regime.
Successive
governments have shied away from cutting subsidies, a politically
explosive issue in a country where tens of millions rely on
state-subsidised bread. Efforts to reduce the aid in the 1970s led to
bread riots.
Speaking at the opening of a factory
in Alexandria, Sisi said that experience would not deter him from
pushing through painful reforms.
"The first effort
at reform came in 1977, and when it was not accepted by the citizens,
all the governments hesitated to make reform efforts, afraid of the
reactions," Sisi said.
"It is not only you who
will judge me. God will also judge and so will history ... All the
difficult decisions that many hesitated to take over many years, that
they were afraid to take, I will not hesitate to take for one second."
In
2014, Egypt began a programme to eliminate energy subsidies over five
years. The government on Monday announced new increases in electricity
prices.
A VAT bill is in parliament, where it has
faced significant opposition from lawmakers concerned about the impact
on prices in a country where headline inflation is at 14 percent.
Sisi said that repeated wars over the decades had set back Egypt's economic development and that the uprising that ended Hosni Mubarak's 30-year rule had shaken the economy.
He blamed terrorist attacks over the decades for holding back tourism and said there was a need to end corruption.
Sisi
also said that a bloated public payroll had contributed to the
country's deficit and hinted at looming increases in the cost of riding
Cairo's underground trains. He also promised that programmes were
underway to protect the poorest from the impact impending reforms.
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