In a TV interview, Mohamed Fayez Farahat, a member of the board of trustees, who is the Director of Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, said various National Dialogue's committees discussed proposals for political, economic, and social reforms this week.

Farahat added that the specialized committees will hold closed-door meetings this week to “wrap up a new batch of recommendations to submit to President El-Sisi as reforms to be implemented through government executive action or legislative amendments."

Farahat also noted that the timetable of the National Dialogue's forthcoming sessions might change due to the holding of presidential elections.

Reviewing progress
 

According to Farahat, the participants in the National Dialogue have so far concluded the discussions on 70 percent of the topics on the dialogue’s agenda and already submitted the relevant recommendations to President El-Sisi.

He added that they were currently in the process of submitting “another batch of recommendations on political parties, inflation, public debts and cultural industries."

For his part, the National Dialogue's Secretary-General Mahmoud Fawzi said, also in a TV interview on Sunday, that the first stage of the National Dialogue's public sessions submitted 129 recommendations for political, economic and social reforms to President El-Sisi.

These recommendations include 30 for political reforms, 38 for economic reforms, and 61 for social reforms, according to Fawzi.  

Upcoming recommendations
 

Fawzi indicated that the National Dialogue is about to produce another batch of recommendations following the end of the public sessions held last week.

In its latest round of public sessions, the dialogue proposed amendments to a 1977 legislation to ease restrictions on establishing political parties and allow more freedom to the press.

The participants in the public sessions also proposed drafting legislation that would put a cap on foreign borrowing and debts and rationalize public spending, stressing that Egypt should generate sovereign sources of income instead of resorting to foreign loans.

Furthermore, the participants urged the government to accelerate the privatization program to narrow the foreign exchange gap, which is significantly responsible for the recent depreciation of the Egyptian pound.