Brookings AGI at the Annual Meetings: Inside Egypt’s strategy for sustainable growth and development

LANDRY SIGNÉ: Hello, I am Landry Signé, a Senior Fellow at the Global Economy and Development Program and the Africa Growth Initiative at the Brookings Institution. Welcome to Foresight Africa Podcast, where I engage with distinguished leaders in academia, policy, business and civil society to schedule unique insights and innovative solutions to Africa’s challenges while highlighting opportunities to advance engagement between Africa, the US, and the international community.

Today we are fortunate to be meeting on the sidelines of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund’s Annual Meetings, a yearly gathering of the world’s most prominent figures in development, finance, whether central bankers, ministers of finance, head of global institutions, and regional financial institutions, but also corporate CEOs, entrepreneurs, and civil society leaders. Welcome to the Brookings Institution Foresight Africa Podcast Show, Minister!

RANIA AL-MASHAT: Thank you so much, Landry. Pleasure to be here with you.

LANDRY SIGNÉ: Before we begin, could you please state your full name and title for the recording?

RANIA AL-MASHAT: I am Rania Al-Mashat, Egypt’s Minister of Planning, Economic Development and International Cooperation.

LANDRY SIGNÉ: I am delighted to have you join me during this busy week, and I truly appreciate you taking the time out of your hectic schedule to share your wonderful insights with our audience. Excellency, as you take part of this year’s Annual Meetings, which priorities do you see as most essential for driving sustainable and inclusive growth worldwide and why?

RANIA AL-MASHAT: Thank you very much. I think all of us are here this week to investigate together what the global growth story looks like after what we’ve seen during the year with respect to protectionism and also potential for different trade tensions. So this has been a key focus for everybody. A key focus that despite all of this, we have opportunities to grow, opportunities to create jobs which matter the most. And another very important aspect for our gathering is to ensure that international cooperation and multilateralism stay alive.

LANDRY SIGNÉ: Absolutely.

RANIA AL-MASHAT: Whether it’s in the G24 meetings, in the IMFC meetings, in the Development Committee meetings. There is a very important significance of all of us coming here together to discuss national priorities, but in an international context that can deliver, as you mentioned sustainable development and inclusivity at the national and global level.

LANDRY SIGNÉ: Fantastic, Excellency. And what insights or lessons from these discussions or from your broader work should global leaders act on to strengthen resiliency, but also address today’s most pressing economic and social challenges?

RANIA AL-MASHAT: A few points. First that today looking at the global landscape all countries need to work to push more productivity. To push more competitive sectors. And in doing that one key item is maintaining macroeconomic stability. So a lot of the reforms related to fiscal monetary policy continue to be center stage, very important for macroeconomic stability to create a conducive environment for better policy predictability.

That has to be accompanied with structural reforms at a sector level, at a doing business level, at a green transition level. So that as you are maintaining macroeconomic stability, you want it sustained. And the only way to sustain macroeconomic stability is through very detailed structural reform that can distinguish your country, that can make it more prominent when it comes to certain sectors of priority. In the case of Egypt, for instance on September 7th we issued our Narrative for Economic Development. Reforms for growth, jobs and resilience. And I share it with everybody.

LANDRY SIGNÉ: Amazing,

RANIA AL-MASHAT: It’s a way to put our objectives, our economic program where we emphasize microeconomic stability, but at the same time say that we want to move to an economy that depends more on tradables. That depends more on high productivity sectors and for us to ensure that we need to do structure reforms which go into the nitty gritties of improving the business environment, creating more competition, customs, taxes. So it’s a whole government effort and that is tied with quantitative targets. So it’s a way to communicate this very important vision and narrative with very precise steps that again: key objectives are growth and jobs and resilience.

LANDRY SIGNÉ: Insightful excellency. And how are international financial institutions adapting their mandates and instruments to an evolving geopolitical trade economic landscape, and where can they most effectively lead transformative change?

RANIA AL-MASHAT: International institutions are relevant, are important and it depends on countries to make sure that they benefit the most, depending on the national agenda in the case of Egypt we have very strong, incredible relationships with the different IFIs.

And a key point is in addition to the financing, there’s always a scope for a deeper dive into sectoral studies into capacity building. There’s also with what’s happening globally, a focus that concessional finance can be directed to private investments.

LANDRY SIGNÉ: Absolutely.

RANIA AL-MASHAT: And this is what Egypt has been keen on doing over the past years. In four years, we’ve been able to mobilize more than $15 billion for the private sector across different projects which create growth in jobs, renewable space, pharmaceuticals food processing and many others.

So there’s a very clear mandate where we want to be able to benefit from these sources of finance for the private sector in order to push our growth trajectory.

LANDRY SIGNÉ: Fantastic, Excellency. And what bold and actionable ideas from this week do you see shaping global policy and practice, and how do you plan to translate this into tangible outcomes?

RANIA AL-MASHAT: Since we are here at the World Bank, we’ve all heard the president of the World Bank talk about growth and jobs by identifying five sectors of importance that the bank is focusing on. And when I take a look at these five sectors, I see that they are very much in line with the sector sectors Egypt has focused on in the past and continues to focus on going forward.

Sustainable infrastructure. Including renewables and energy tourism. Tourism is 15% of our GDP. Egypt is one of the big countries related to tourism globally. This year has been an all-time high and, with the opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum 1st of November, we are going to see even further increase.

So tourism, healthcare. And there are initiatives from the World Bank related to healthcare in 2030, which we are going to be part of as well. And also manufacturing, which in our case, if you take a look at GDP, over the past year, despite the headwinds manufacturing and industry have been the largest contributor.

So when I take a look at the global agenda that the Bank is putting forward. I see that it’s very much consistent with Egypt’s development agenda today, and that creates a lot of important areas of cooperation not just between the Bank and Egypt, but also between Egypt and other countries under the umbrella of the World Bank.

So the concepts of triangular cooperation also come into play when we are discussing these issues.

LANDRY SIGNÉ: Amazing. What a beautiful way to conclude. Excellency, thank you so much for joining us today.

RANIA AL-MASHAT: Thank you very much. It’s been a pleasure.