El Sisi sells nation on IMF program in second economic speech in as many weeks: President Abdel Fattah El Sisi reaffirmed the administration’s commitment to its reform program during a speech at the opening ceremony of the Ethydco Petrochemicals complex on Saturday. The speech can be seen in full here (run time 39:52).

With tough times ahead, El Sisi said he is committed to implementing economic reforms,Reuters noted in their summary of the speech. A significant portion of the speech involved talk on public spending on salaries and pensions. Public pressure saw the state hire some 900k new employees it did not need after January 25, 2001, the president said. Public wages grew from EGP 80-90 bn to EGP 228 bn in the last four years, while government debt grew by EGP 600 bn as a result to 97% of GDP. Meanwhile, pensions have gone up by 35% in the last two years, at a cost of EGP 70 bn.

On electricity, fuel, and the Metro: El Sisi briefly addressed recent price hikes on electricity, saying that while the lowest consumption tier will only see their electricity bills rise EGP 1.50, that tier as a whole costs EGP 28 bn in subsidies. Taken as a whole, the rise in electricity prices will see EGP 20 bn restored to the state budget. El Sisi also noted that talk of subsidy reform should not be “misconstrued” to mean we face imminent fuel price hikes. A plan to phase-out fuel subsidies will be announced before it is implemented, he said. El Sisi also hinted at a possible Cairo Metro ticket price increase as the operating cost would require a ticket price of “over EGP 10.”

El Sisi also laid out specific development targets to be achieved by mid-2018, including:

• Completing 7,000 km of roads and 200 bridges at a total cost of EGP 100 bn;
• Completing 800k to 1 mn low-income housing units and building another 150k homes for residents of informal housing settlements at a total combined cost of EGP 100 mn;
• Wastewater treatment (including agricultural, industrial, sewage): 10 mn cubic meters per day, or 3.5 bn cubic meters annually;
• Seawater desalination: 1 mn cubic meters per day;
• 1.2 bn sqm in new cities,including New Qena, New Assiut, New Minya, New Sohag, the new administrative capital, New Alamein, East of Canal zone, New Suez

The president also mentioned at target of increasing cement production by 20-30% from today’s level, among other initiatives.