FJP 2011 Program on Productivity Development

This program’s productive development strategy depends on the combined efforts of the state and the private sector in a balanced implementation of the projects: the highest priority and the slowest for initial returns productive projects, along with the least priority and the fastest returns ones, in order to maintain liquidity and avoid inflation, based on the following points:

1.Focussing on productive projects with relative economic advantage locally and globally.

2.Achieving a balance between the productive projects which aim to export and projects that aim to bridge the gaps in internal needs.

3.Supporting labour-intensive production techniques and projects which contribute to solving the problem of poverty and unemployment.

4.Expansion in the projects that enhance the added value of natural resources and national wealth rather than draining them.

5.Stimulating the private sector – at the local, Arab and international levels – to create the projects listed in the state plan for the development of productivity.

6.Focussing on industry and technology development as a powerful work-horse to pull the wheel of development, and support it with energy and mining projects.

7.Increasing use of alternative energy, especially renewable types, focussing on solar energy projects, and working on nationalising and developing technologies relevant to those projects.

8.Promote agriculture and livestock production to achieve sufficiency in vital staple crops, bridge the food gap, maximize economic value, and develop irrigation and water conservation projects.

Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock

-The program accepts that the State shall establish the infrastructure necessary to plant a million acres, and provide about 500 thousand job opportunities.

-Modifying the crop structure while maintaining a balance between the production of grain and fodder crops, sugar and consumable crops, so as to save approximately 10-15% of irrigation water.

-Sinai reconstruction project, to plant 400 thousand acres of various crops.

-Re-examining the distribution of agricultural land to young graduates to confine such distribution to graduates of colleges of agriculture and veterinary medicine

-Encouraging foreign and Arab investment in large reclamation projects, with or side by side with Egyptian investors.

Protection of older lands from degradation and erosion:

1.Enacting laws that criminalise the use of agricultural land in construction as well as the military law that was abolished as an electoral bribe under previous governments.

2.Increasing construction and economical low-/medium-cost housing projects for young graduates in new areas, and increasing the contribution of civil society in the adoption of these projects.

3.The use of modern technologies in the re-purification of sewage and direct it to timber crops and forests.

Integration with Sudan:

1.Build bridges of cooperation with the Sudanese government.

2.Encourage Egyptian investors to agricultural investment in Sudan.

Irrigation and water management:

1.Developing surface irrigation systems and increasing the efficient use of irrigation water to save 20-25% of irrigation water currently used. Water saved in this way can be directed to the irrigation of new areas in reclamation zones.

2.Train ‘Water Advisors’ to accompany and assist agricultural advisors.

3.Making use of modern irrigation systems (sprinkler irrigation – drip irrigation) in most of the new reclamation areas, and banning use of surface irrigation systems, except for practical necessities in these areas. To achieve these objectives, the following procedural goals must be attained:

a.Educate farmers and small owners of the importance of preserving available water resources.

b.Create cooperatives that can contribute technical and material assistance to small holders so as to adopt the use of modern irrigation systems.

Industry, Energy and Mining:

Our elections program supports – over the next five years – in the fields of industry, energy and mining, the following main points:

1.The establishment of a Higher Council for Industry and Energy and Mining that works for the integration of efforts in these three sectors.

2.The construction of three thousand industrial units, that should provide about 200 thousand job opportunities to serve the following industrial areas:

•Labour-intensive industries

•The building materials industry

•Agro-industries

•Import-substitution industries

•Industries that cater for export markets.

3.Increasing energy projects to reach the maximum capacity of 30-35GW in proportion to economic growth rates as follows:

•Substitution of diesel with natural gas in electric stations.

•Increasing the pace of building power plants based on renewable water, wind and solar energies.

•Developing electrical energy joint-projects with the Nile Basin countries.

4.Maximising the use of mining projects as follows:

•Re-drafting legislation and enacting laws regulating the exploitation of mineral energy to serve development goals.

•Using modern technologies in the fields of mining to take advantage of precious mineral raw materials.

•Increase the value added in national mineral wealth by encouraging the mining industries.

See FJP’s full program for Egypt’s Parliamentary Elections, 2011