Presidential hopeful Moussa Mostafa Moussa (Photo: Al-Ahram)
Presidential hopeful and Ghad Party chairman Moussa Mostafa Moussa said he would advocate youth economic empowerment as part of his programme, in some of his first public comments after he presented his candidacy documents to the National Elections Authority on Monday.
In statements to Al-Ahram Arabic news website, the 66-year-old said his programme would rely on "patriotic capitalism" as part of the solution for the country’s current economic problems, adding that he would seek to encourage investments.
He explained that his programme would include a reopening of closed factories by providing aid to their owners.
He said he would extend loans to the youth for small-scale factories, in order to increase exports and take advantage of a lower pound, following the floatation of the Egyptian pound in 2016.
He also stressed that Egypt should increase its investments in Africa, saying planes that deliver Egyptian products to African counties should not return empty but should instead bring back cheap frozen meat, to end the problem of high meat prices.
Moussa also said Egypt should be transformed from an importer to an exporter.
He stressed the need to benefit from the energy of young people, promising to create job opportunities with monthly salaries that reach EGP15,000 a month through workers’ ownership of shares in the companies and factories where they are employed.
The minimum wage in the public sector in Egypt is currently EGP1,200.
Moussa submitted his candidacy documents for Egypt's presidential elections to the NEA on Monday, an hour before the deadline for registration.
He had told Al-Ahram Arabic news website earlier that he had fulfilled the requirements to register as a candidate in the March elections, including 47,000 citizens' endorsements as well as 26 endorsements from members of parliament.
Moussa and President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi are the only hopeful candidates to submit all required papers and endorsements to the NEA.
In the past few weeks, several well-known public figures who had been mulling a run ended their bids for various reasons.
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