Investments directed to the oil, natural gas and mineral wealth sector in the current FY2020/2021 stand at EGP 60.6 billion, constituting 8.2 percent of the total investments allocated to all sectors in Egypt, Minister of Planning and Economic Development Hala El Said announced on Sunday.

El Said unveiled that the sector's targets in FY2020/2021 include increasing production, according to the ongoing prices, by 7.2 percent to reach EGP 586.6 billion up from EGP 547.3 billion achieved in FY2019/2020; in addition to raising the sector’s production, in terms of the fixed prices, to reach 460.7 billion, up from EGP 441.1 billion in FY2019/2020 - an increase rate of 4.5 percent.

The minister pointed out that the sectors have a development vision focusing on securing Egypt’s needs for oil products in order to keep up with the requirements of sustainable development, to increase the oil sector’s contribution to the country’s GDP and to transform Egypt into a strategic centre for energy trading.

“In order to attain this, FY2020/2021 includes a plan that aims at offering more international auctions in the sector, expanding in exploring new oil and natural gas fields and targets the proper utilisation of the current ones. Moreover, it focuses on increasing the capacity of oil refinery laboratories and increasing their efficiency, in addition to supporting the state’s efforts to rationalise energy consumption,” said El-Said.

For the sector’s exports, the minister explained that the FY2020/2021 plan targets exporting some 32 million tonnes of raw oil, natural gas, petroleum and petrochemical products, according to El-Said.

“The oil sector is the cornerstone of Egypt’s sustainable development, as it is the main source of securing power needs for all economic sectors in the country and the final consumption markets. Furthermore, it enhances Egypt’s trade balance by growing the sector’s exports to the external markets,” according to El Said.

She added that the sector attained tangible achievements over the past few years, through which Egypt can reach energy self-sufficiency, highlighting the border demarcation deal inked recently between Egypt, Cyprus and Greece, which paves the way for resuming exploration operations.

In June, Minister of Finance Mohamed Maait said that public investment allocations increased in FY2020/2021 by 64.3 percent to reach EGP 280.7 billion.

Egypt’s current FY2020/2021 budget came in force in July with a total value of EGP 2.2 trillion, making it the largest budget in the country’s history.