Prioritizing Upper Egypt

The last two weeks of December saw the inauguration of many important projects in Upper Egypt by President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi, among them the Assiut Oil Refining Company, hospitals in Assiut, Minya, Sohag, and Luxor, and water treatment plants in Beni Sweif, Qena, and Minya.

During his tour of the region, Al-Sisi also visited Aswan where he went to the Benban Solar Power Park and the Gharb Soheil Nubian Village, which he said would be included in the Decent Life initiative that aims to improve the quality of life in some 4,500 rural villages.

However, the projects are just a fraction of those targeted at Upper Egypt. The region is to receive the lion’s share of LE1.1 trillion in investments as part of the first phase of Egypt’s Vision 2030 for Sustainable Development launched in 2014.

According to Sherif Saleh, director of the Upper Egypt Development Authority (UEDA), over LE750 billion, or 68 per cent, of the total outlay has been allocated to projects in the Upper Egyptian governorates. More than 10.3 million Upper Egyptians are currently benefiting from projects covering 65 per cent of the Upper Egyptian governorates in the programme’s first phase, he said. The second phase aims to bring in the rest of Upper Egypt within four years.

The programme is being carried out according to a three-pronged strategy, one component of which is infrastructure development, Saleh said. This includes new highways and ring roads, such as the 230 km Western Desert Highway, the 310 km Dayrut-Farafra Ring Road, and the Western Assiut Plateau Highway.