Egypt’s President, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, swore in a drastically reorganized cabinet on Wednesday, adding new finance and foreign ministers to a government beset by daily power outages, economic hardships, and the Gaza war on its border.

Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly was reappointed by Sisi after the resignation of the previous cabinet was announced a month ago. Sisi stated that the main goals of his new government will be to increase investment and reduce inflation, which reached record highs last year.

Ahmed Kouchouk, a well-known individual who served as the World Bank’s chief economist before taking on the role of deputy finance minister in 2016 and leading negotiator for the International Monetary Fund, is the new minister of finance.

Following his oath of office, Kouchouk declared that Egypt would stick to its policies of reducing debt, adhering to fiscal restraint, and pursuing structural reform to facilitate growth in the private sector.

The re-appointment of Rania al-Mashat, the former minister of international cooperation who was responsible for securing development financing, came with the addition of planning and economic development to her portfolio.

Hassan El Khatib, a finance expert who had previously held positions at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, completed the revived post of investment minister. The longer-dated maturities of the bonds saw the biggest increase in value.

Egypt’s long-standing foreign exchange shortfall has been lessened by a recent infusion of capital and money from the UAE, the IMF, and the EU, among others; nevertheless, since then, power outages and gas shortages have made life difficult for both businesses and residents.

After being nominated petroleum minister, Karim Badawi, a manager at the oil services company SLB, stated that supplying fuel to power plants will be a top priority. Mohamed Shaker was succeeded at the Ministry of Energy by Mahmoud Esmat, a former minister of public enterprises.

At the supply ministry, which oversees wheat purchases, Sherif Farouk took over from his predecessor as chairman of Egypt Post, where he had overseen reforms to pension payments systems.

Aiming for reform, Farouk will oversee a food subsidy program that feeds over 60 million people and makes Egypt one of the world’s largest importers of wheat.

Over the previous two years, as Egypt struggled to control a dollar shortage and soaring inflation, there have been rumours that Madbouly himself may be replaced.
To put Egypt’s economy on a more stable foundation, analysts and businesses argue that significant changes are required, including the state and military making room for the private sector.

Mahmoud Mohieldin, a former Egyptian minister of investment, told the American Chamber of Commerce in Cairo on Monday that in addition to enabling much-increased exports and tax revenue, institutions also need to invest in human resources.

“We need to have a plan from now, which is a new growth model, a new development model,” he said.