other human rights condition, they are addressing these issue. >> i had hoped for a second rond of questions. we actually got started late so it would be fair. i've been handed a note taking that authority away from me to extend this session. i apologize to the people in the front i discriminated against in favor of those in the back. tw two instructions. number one, we heard in the morning instruction. we leave you free for the next hour and 25 minutes to implement it however you see fit individual. so we're going to break until 2:30 for lunch. and we'll reconvene at 2:30.

the second instruction is if you could please take off your head sets. and please join me in thanking our guests. [ applause ] in this panel representatives from the arab world talk about the economic challenges ahead and the way forward since the arab spring. they talk about plans to bring done the jobless rate in egypt, tunisia and jordan. this is a little over 90 minutes. good afternoon to all of

you. in the interests of those who have already arrived, we should get started. we're going to now move from the politics to the economics. we have wonderful panel, which is going to first of all lay out a little bit the vision in terms of the economic strategy that is there for jordan, tunisia, egypt. i would very much like this to be an interactive panel. the more the questions from the floor, the more specific the reactions and the more we get to the issues on the heart and minds of the audiences. you havele bios of all of our distinguished panelists. i'm not going to go over the details except to tell how is sitting where. >> nael is sitting next to me

from jordan and hussein al kazzaz is there from egypt and the good news is that there hasn't been an economic crisis, all three have managed to avoid a crisis. but that's really all one can say. if you look at the economics, a year later there's been no growth in any of these economies, a little bit of negative growth in a couple. unemployment has gone up.

social pressures are rising. and even maintaining macro economic stability mass become more challenging because the pressures on these economies have increased. so within immediate challenge facing all these countries and the governments that will be taking office or have already taken office, is how do you avoid a crisis in the next year? that's the immediate challenge. but what brought about the revolutions and the uprising wasn't because there was macro economic stability in these countries, none of them had macro instability before. what broke that was hooping high enough, without any opportunities for them. were not being distributed fairly. so there is a big project of

economic transformation and five years from now the commission outcomes in which governments in all of the middle east will be judged is partly whether they avoided a crisis. a crisis like a heart attack, everything stops, you focus on that. so you want to avoid that but just avoiding a crisis isn't going to be enough. how did you generate the jobs that were needed, the transformation that was required to make growth more inclusive, to have safety nets that were targeted to, to have people feel they go have an opportunity to participate. my question would be to all three of you, if you could take ten minutes to lay out where you think you would like to be in five years and what is it that you think you grg do that will help get threw and what help do you need from the rest of the world to help you get there?

then i think we can get into specifics of that and if you could start with that, and i might start with you, mondner, if i could. >> thank you for giving me the opportunity to lay down the economic policy of tunisia as we go forward. i would like to take you back on the reasons for the revolution. there are two main slogans that were raised during the tunisian revolution. so it's not liberty or freedom and dignity as well. we need to keep that in mind but there were also some socioeconomic problems. that where, you know, developing in the society before the revolution. now the strategy before tunisia

has been published just two days ago. the government presented its strategy on monday as well as the complementary budget for 2012. and there is a lot that can be learned from an official government document, which is 120 pages with many details. but basically let me brief you about the general outlook and the general picture in the government strategy. when we sat down to put the strategy for this government, the coalition government, we were afraid by if we have an elaborate policy and general policy and general framework and very developed policy published that it will give the wrong signals to the people and we

would be criticized as you, you know, and the execution of this policy might require find years or ten years. if didn't do at that, we would you -- it would not give visibility to the people. what we finally did was state a vision for tunisiania. the vision to s to make tunisia democratic, modern and prosperous. democratic is the reform we talked about this morning. mod were is the type of sight we would like to make, an open society, a modern society where there this -- and prosperous is

the economic program of the government and where we want uniony,ia to be in the first five years. now, this vision was detailed and general policies were stated how we are going to execute this. on the economic and social front, the economy basically start from the precept that in tunisia growth -- employment comes from growth. we have no oil, we have no gas, we have no minerals. the only way we can provide jobs is if we can create growth. and 1 percentage point of growth is equivalent to 15,000 jobs. soy in order to absorb all newcomers on the job market, which is approximately 100,000 new job seekers every year, we need a growth of about 7%. now the economy was growing by

approximately by 5% over the past five years before the revolution. that and we need to create the witt ving that direction and in order to encourage people to go and -- we have -- forbes, an inarticulation of corruption, the establishment of good governments and transparency, the establishment of the independence of this judiciary. these things are very important for investors. and they usually lead the reforms in this area lead to direct percentage points in

growth. >> the second pillar is to introduce 13 sets of reforms. the% operation cold. the knowledge wem -- some of them need to start now, others might take two or three years but need to start now and others will be subject to debate in society. so the second pillar is to introduce a set free familiar which makes them now.

the government has increased public spending for infrastructure development from $5.2 billion to 6.4 billion dinars in infrastructure projects, roads and electricity temperature all kinds of infrastructure are necessary in order for businesses to come and invest, especially in the regions of the interior. now what woo did between -- we asked what projects of infrastructure would you like to see in your region? what didn't the other regime do for you? is it a hospital, electrical zone, would you like to see an electrical plant? and we gathered that information

from all the reemgons and decided for two priority projects. so for this year in at least those projects will be executednow this sustainable frack will take us from minus 2011 to 5 points in 2013 and 6 to 7 points when we would be cruising in 2014. obviously the sustainable track is the main track of reform of tunisia and that's the way we going to develop our economy but this will yield the first jobs.

we have 800,000 unemployed youth today. so we needed to introduce another track, which is a component in the economy for 2012. we are going to increase government in three major programs. one policeman is to create immediate temporary jobs for about 100,000 people. just like the new deal did in the 1930s, which is to provide the youth with some temporary job waiting for the economy to take off. the second program it s to do an on-job training. certain disciplines are not required today or asked for for a job, to give them english skills, to give them ict skills,

which makes them more attractive for employers. and the third program is to build 30,000 social housing units over a period of two years. now, this will be done through increased government spending but to i reassure, ilt going to be in a go-and-stop mote. -- mode. it will start in 2012 and it will stop in 2013 and hopefully the economy will catch up to provide the necessary jobs. now the announcement of this program had the good psychological effect in tunisia today. the government was cancel to say

had is where we're heading economically but we can only do this much in a year because our mandate is for one year, so that we don't scare opposite and we do say like the question today that when islam is come to follow, they tend to believe. the government has announced it will seek the date of march 12, 2013 as the date for the next election. also the government hats announced it will maintain an independent election committee and that it will maintain the president of that election committee, who did a fantastic job. by the way, he is known to be a leftist secular. so fors so of you who would like to know where we're heading. the idea of giving a clear road

map, a clear direction, a sense for investors and state and introduce some comfort inored for the production to go back again. that alongside a decision to maintain less tension between the different rivals and that's very important for business. business and politics are closely interleaked, know? and a good political frame good for so at the same time i told you, we we by 2.5 billion dinars

from the original law will come mostly from the confiscated assets, which is estimated to generate this year $1.2 billion dinars for the tunisian economy. also although we did the public stimulus pack and for the economy from 2012, we will only, you know, we will reach a budget deficit of 6.. we are on a budget deficit of approximately 3% and would going commit do on on saturday and all of the tsunami 2012 and 2013

through the models that you have that the imf and we massachusetts etted three tiends of jock and all of that has showed that you're economy is still resilient and that our debt is sustainable up to 55%. so we are in a self-gon -- governing. our goal is to come back to a debt ratio over five-year period of a growth ratio of 247%.

here is the economic strategy that tunisia will be -- encouraging signs that the investment will go well in the country. many, many, many countries have showed a lot of support fortune nishia economically. the united states has showing a lot of support recently, it has announced it will give tunisia $100 million in direct budgetary aid and there are other packages, as well. europe and european firms have confirmed their intention to stay in the country and to increase their investments in the country. a lot of from the gulf countries are visiting tunisia and indicating their intentioning to invest. we have every intention that the environment will be good for these firms to make money and to have job, have real economic

opportunities. we have a free trade agreement with europe. we are constantly updating our european position, and we are seeking the status of a printed partner with europe and the process is under way fortune nishia to get that. secretary clinton announced to the prime minister a few days ago a few days ago that president obama gave the green light to start the free trade agreement with the united states which is obviously a good sign for investors and for american firms. so you know, growth, investment is what's going to create jobs and we, the government, will create the right environment for that. thank you. >> thank you very much. mondher. it's a very clear plan and you've laid it out very nicely. i'm sure many people will have specific questions they want to come back on. before we do that, i do want to turn to the other panelists. of course, jordan is not the

same situation as tunisia both in terms of monday hof mondher't a government plan but also economically, tunisia has a bit more space for doing the kind of fiscal expansion because the initial debt levels were low, the budget deficit was quite small before the 2011, 2, 3% this year. jordan is in a slightly different place. so less space to do the kinds of things tunisia is doing for the short term, and yet, some of the same challenges that you are facing in terms of youth unemployment, in terms of the shock of high energy prices. so i wanted to get a sense from you now, nael, of how you see the kinds of policy package that you think would make sense from

where you sit, which may be different from what the government is doing because obviously, you're not in a position to speak for them. >> okay, thank you. [ speaking foreign language ] actually, i am a medical doctor. the economic language is not my language. that's why i have to speak in arabic to be easier. >> translator: i'm an investor in medical sector and a project total ling about $50 million. this is a model of the islamic economy in which principals of a free economy or private sector principals apply to. no doubt in the islamist movement in jordan, we cross was other islamic nature movement in the nature of the reform program

and it's public or general direction are thought as economic formation is concerned. i believe that any islamist movement that wants to start -- that wants to start with the economic reform should work to stop the bleeding. in medical terms, if there is hemorrhage or bleeding, we have to work to stop that bleeding. so in order to support other vital signs for life. so i think that islamist movement had suffered and many peoples in the nation suffered a lot from corruption and dispensation of public funds arbitrary, and i believe that it's imperative that there should be a serious step in this direction so that we are able to control the resources that are

being wasted in various ways. no doubt that corruption is a general phenomena, and we in the arab world population is about $3508 million, about 65% work in agriculture, and, of course, here there's a shortage of water. therefore, the number of unemployed in that sector is about 50% and those who are below the poverty line is about one-third of the 350 million. so i believe that if we wanted to -- if there's any reform movement to look at these numbers, there will be concern with stopping the waste and the resources. the islamist movement is not against the public sector. i particularly have experience

in public sector, and i'm sure others in other areas have experiences in the private sector. for example, i have about 1,000 citizens working with me. in people like me in a country like jordan created imp projects like i do, you would employ about 100,000 people. currently, the government employs annually about 6,000 people because there's a glut in human power. so, the -- the government tried to work on the employment by unemployment by employing people within the government sector to kind of camouflage the real numbers of unemployment. so you find that the one who's produce in the private sector are more productive. i think that focusing on the private sector and economic reform is no doubt a step that

must be a major step and but in the private sector, we cannot adoptors worse than experience because we cannot compete with -- by establishing conglomerates, for instance. that requires a huge amount of capital. we focus on small businesses. or entrepreneurship. this is adopted through development projects that target the families that work in the agricultural sector and some small industries that would be able to produce at least to supply the local domestic market and also to produce some immunity for the domestic economy in order that it will provide the necessity basics and

decent life for the citizens. and we're not talking about luxury here or prosperity, but that's something else. we are concerned firstly to work on providing the basic needs. after that, we will work toward the prosperity among individuals in the society. i believe sma small development projects should be targeted extensively through the programs that will be employed by those who would be in government. the other issue in my belief is the infrastructure, the focus on the infrastructure projects are long-term projects normally. the means for infrastructure projects no doubt there is a problem in the financing

sources. i believe that will islamist movement can work on two parallel tracks concerning the infrastructure. the first track is to of garner the expatriates of the citizens from abroad. most of the people in revolutions have many of the citizens live agbroad. they have successful businesses. these projects could be gradu gradually moved by providing the right climate so the that they can investment in their mother countries. i believe there is a model in turkey that depicts this issue. so the governing party is an islamist leaning party that started providing for secure investments. according to statistics now, more than 2 million