The political leadership has managed, during the past seven years, to overcome the economic crises that the country has had to face over decades through an ambitious program of economic reform, stated Magdy Galal, Chairman of the Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (EGAS), in a speech he delivered on behalf of Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Tarek El Molla during  the opening session of Al-Ahram’s 5^th Annual Energy Conference.

The speech highlighted how the Egyptian state has entered a race against time to build Egypt of the future, maximize its capabilities and assets, and has implemented many national projects. The conference was organized based on the theme ‘New Horizons for Energy Production and Use’, under the patronage of Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly.

El Molla’s speech also stated that efforts of the state culminated in making achievements that the whole world has witnessed. This was realized through comprehensive development efforts within the framework of a national vision and strategy aiming to strengthen the country in all fields.

The state’s efforts began implementing a national program for comprehensive economic and social reform that took into account the low-income and needy groups and created the appropriate climate to encourage national and foreign investments, according to El Molla’s speech.

The minister’s speech referred to the oil and gas sector’s successes that were achieved due to the reform policies adopted by the political leadership and how the sector succeeded in achieving strong contributions to the Egyptian economy and unprecedented positive indicators in performance rates.

In addition, the speech also referred to achieving a surplus in the petroleum trade balance during 2020/2021 equivalent to EGP 9.4 billion, in continuation of its success in achieving a surplus for the first time, during the year 2018/2019, which was equivalent to about EGP 9.9 billion.

The opening session was attended by Mohamed Maait, Minister of Finance, and Mohamed Shaker, Minister of Electricity and Renewable Energy, on behalf of the Prime Minister.