At this year’s EnterpriseAM Egypt Forum — we sat down for a keynote interview with Dr. Rania Al Mashat, the Minister of Planning, Economic Development, and International Cooperation to unpack Egypt’s new economic game plan. The minister detailed the strategy to anchor expectations and propel the private sector into the driver’s seat, fueled by a pool of concessional finance to offset high interest rates. Al Mashat highlighted a structural shift in GDP, with high-productivity sectors like manufacturing and ICT now leading the charge and private investment reaching 57%, setting the stage for 2026 as a key inflection point.

Anchoring expectations with a clear economic narrative: “Anchoring expectations is a very important objective… It means that you need to be clear. You need to be clear with your policies, you need to be clear with the tools that you’re going to use,” she said. “[This is the] reason why we came out with Egypt’s narrative for economic development—and the rest of it is policies for growth, jobs, and resilience.”

The state’s structural reform program rests on three pillars. “First, maintaining macroeconomic stability. Second, pushing more competitiveness and increasing private sector engagement. And the third is the green transition.” The narrative includes time-bound commitments so the private sector can track progress.

Where is GDP growth coming from? The key metric, she explained, is not just the headline GDP number (averaging 4.4% this year, 5% last quarter) but its source. “It’s all coming from industry, the ICT sector, and tourism,” despite negative contributions from the Suez Canal and oil and gas. “GDP is really being pushed by… more industrialization, more productive sectors, more competition.” She stressed these new sectors are diversified — pointing to pharmaceuticals, vehicle manufacturing, textiles, and chemical production — and have “high employment multipliers.”

“The private sector needs to be the engine of growth,” Al Mashat stated. The goal is to build “an economy that focuses more on high-productivity sectors, one that pushes more exports.” She described this strategy as moving into a “continuous circle” where “macroeconomic stability… is maintained through fiscal, monetary, and governance of public investments. That is coupled with continuing reforms on the structural side, the real economy. And that leads to economic development, more exports, creating more foreign exchange, which pushes macroeconomic stability.”

The private sector now accounts for 57% of total investments. This is supported by “very strict ceilings we have on public investment” and reforms to “ease business [and] to create more competitive neutrality.”

Clarity of policy is the key point for attracting investment, Al Mashat said, adding that “nobody wants to work in a high-inflation context.” She explained that “to regain credibility, real interest rates are kept high for some time,” underscoring that maintaining macroeconomic stability through clear fiscal, monetary, and public investment governance “is the only way we can guarantee the continuation of the GDP rebound we are seeing today.”

Utilizing international concessional finance: Addressing the challenge of high interest rates, Al Mashat said companies are already “benefiting from concessional finance from different IFIs,” such as the EBRD and IFC. Egypt, she explained, acts as a “platform” for these institutions to channel private sector financing. “In four years, more than USD 16 bn went to the private sector,” she noted, “whether through credit lines, equity increases, or concessional finance.” Initiatives such as Hafiz, the Nexus of Water, Food, and Energy (NWFE), and a recent EUR 1.8 bn investment guarantee help “leverage more financing from EBRD or EIB for the private sector in Egypt.” These mechanisms, she added, enable Egyptian and foreign firms to “access cheaper financing compared to local sources” by leveraging Egypt’s “very strong relationships with the international community.”

Focusing on the real economy, not just macro stability. “We’re focused on the ground,” she stated. Al Mashat pointed to “real credit from the banking sector to the private sector,” which is “moving upwards” and “going mostly to the industrial sector.” This, she said, is part of a “very consistent narrative” where policy is reflected in real-world results. While macroeconomic stability is “chapter one,” it is supported by an industrial policy, an FDI policy, and a new trade policy for the first time since the 2000s. “All of this is tied together with a very clear structural reform program” that includes vocational training and localization at the governorate level, Al Mashat concluded.

Managing the employment transition and the rise of AI: Addressing concerns about the national narrative’s plan to shift from “non-tradeable sectors” — which employs many low-skill workers — to tradeable ones, the minister said the paths “are not mutually exclusive.” She noted that the plan emphasizes vocational training through PPPs, offering private sector opportunities to harness the demographic dividend, alongside growth in outsourcing. The objective, she explained, is to build a “spectrum of different jobs” in sectors with higher productivity and stronger employment multipliers. She cited tourism as a high-multiplier sector — with a 1-to-3 ratio — that remains resilient to AI disruption, adding that even with automation, “you need somebody to dissect and analyze that data.”

The 2026 outlook: “I think that 2026 is going to be a very important inflection point or year for Egypt. When I take a look at the consistent performance over the past four quarters, it gives me a lot of faith that when we’re doing policies in the right direction, they’re being reflected,” She said. “Any turnaround that happens with the Suez Canal is going to be creating an extra push. What we’re seeing with respect to the recovery in the oil and gas sector is also quite positive. Tourism next year is going to be another record. This year is; next year, hopefully, it will be as well. So 2026 to me is, I would say, a year of really dramatic change.”

We have a window of opportunity with what’s happening globally, and that window of opportunity means that those countries that have a very strong narrative are matching it with the reforms on the ground. Our numbers are showing improvement. We want to maintain that momentum and push forward. It takes an ecosystem. It takes all of us.”

Tap or click here to read the panel’s full transcript.

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