Following the cabinet’s weekly meeting on 2 November, the government announced a LE363 billion allocation to complete the second stage of the development of North Sinai.

“The service sector will account for 55 per cent of government investments directed to North Sinai, followed by the construction sector at 10.5 per cent, and the agriculture and land reclamation schemes at 6.4 per cent,” read the announcement.

It noted that since 2014 more than LE600 billion had been allocated to the first stage of developing and reconstructing North Sinai, the bulk of which was spent on infrastructure projects.

The statement came against the backdrop of Israel’s savage war on Gaza and followed Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouli’s visit to North Sinai last week during which he pointed out that the people of Sinai in general, and North Sinai in particular, had suffered from the repercussions of war since 1956.

“Even after Sinai was completely liberated from Israeli occupation in April 1982, the development of the peninsula was not prioritised because of the shortage of financial resources,” he said.

Projects implemented between 1982 and 2014 were limited to building the Ahmed Hamdi tunnel and Al-Salam and Al-Ferdan bridges which connect Sinai with the Suez Canal region.

MP Yehia Kidwani, a member of parliament’s Defence and National Security Committee, underlines that when President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi came to office in 2014 Egypt was engaged in a ferocious battle against terrorist groups.

The political leadership, says Kidwani, came to the conclusion that the fight against terrorist groups should also include populating and developing the peninsula.

According to the Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS), the population of North Sinai is 450,528, and just 111,108 people live in South Sinai. The peninsula covers 61,000 square kilometres, or six per cent of Egypt’s total land mass.

According to Kidwani, “this first stage of development which focused on giant infrastructure projects helped turn Sinai into an attractive area for investments, especially after the Armed Forces succeeded in ridding it of the terrorist groups that had used North Sinai as a launch pad to spread chaos and instability throughout Egypt.”

When President Al-Sisi came to office he opted to fight terrorism in North Sinai while simultaneously placing the governorate at the top of the development agenda.

Kidwani says the volume of development spending in North Sinai is unprecedented in Egypt’s history and “heralds a development renaissance that will have a positive impact on both national security and the economy.”

Minister of Housing Assem Al-Gazzar told Al-Ahram that plans to develop North Sinai began in earnest in 2014 when plans for 500 projects, including road improvement, rural development, drinking and sanitary drainage networks, and housing communities, were drafted.

 “The ministry built 1,100 km of roads at a cost of LE9 billion to facilitate movement of citizens and trade among the governorate’s cities and towns,” said Al-Gazzar.

“We also implemented 33 rural development projects and integrated farms at a cost of LE1 billion to meet the North Sinai population’s demand for vegetables, fruit, fish, and meat at affordable prices.”

Eleven housing communities costing more than LE4 billion have also been built in North Sinai, which Al-Gazzar says comprise more than 17,000 housing units provided with public utilities.

North Sinai Governor Mohamed Abdel-Fadil Shosha says Rafah and Sheikh Zuwaid, long terrorist hotbeds, are now beacons of stability and development where citizens are provided with a full array of services and one million feddans are cultivated with wheat and olive.

According to Shosha, the second stage of development will include spending LE20 billion to turn Arish Port and airport into an international logistics and trade hub.

On 4 November, Minister of Agriculture Al-Sayed Al-Qusseir said an area of 700,000 feddans is currently being reclaimed for agricultural use.

“We are building 11 rural and agricultural communities to serve 2,100 families and generate more than 20,000 job opportunities,” said Al-Qusseir.

* A version of this article appears in print in the 9 November, 2023 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly