Planning Minister Hala el Saeed said Sunday that the country targeted reducing the unemployment rate to 9.5 percent in the coming two fiscal years.

The unemployment rate has witnessed an improvement after the government implemented its economic reform program, el Saeed said.

The unemployment receded to 11.9 percent in the fourth quarter of the ended fiscal, compared to 12.6 during the same period in the previous fiscal. The rate is expected to gradually decrease in the coming quarters, as the current rates were still high, she added.

El Saeed’s remarks came in a lecture titled “the economic reforms, and macro policies to achieve a sustainable development and creating jobs”, organized by the Egyptian National Competitiveness Council under the auspices of the Planning Ministry and the International Labor Organization to shed light on the importance of macro economics in the short and medium terms.

Any economic reform program aims at creating more jobs, especially in Egypt which enjoys a high percent of youths under 30 years of age as they represent 62 percent of the population, she added.

The minister pointed out that the economic reform program’s outcomes were reflected in the third and fourth quarters of the ended fiscal as the country has witnessed a growth in these quarters.

Source : Mena