CAIRO, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi on Thursday called for listing the companies owned by Egyptian military on the domestic stock market.
Sisi's remarks, aired on the Egyptian state TV, came after he inaugurated two army-owned chemical plants near the capital Cairo.
"The military companies should be available in the stock market and Egyptians should have a chance to buy shares in these companies," Sisi said.
The Egyptian president insisted that the state-owned companies, whose shares are to be traded on the stock exchange, should include army-owned firms.
Egypt announced last year plans to sell minority shares of 23 state-owned firms in a partial privatization process, seeking to collect 80 billion Egyptian pounds (about 4.96 billion U.S. dollars) in less than 30 months.
Sisi explained that offering shares of military firms in the stock exchange will allow the Egyptian people to be partners of them, adding that the military companies have "good chances for success."
The Egyptian president emphasized that the military companies are necessary to provide the country with indispensable strategic products.
"When the Armed Forces assume this (economic) role, it is not at the expense of the private sector," Sisi said, welcoming interested private companies to be partners with the military ones.
Egypt is close to completing a three-year austerity-based economic reform that started in November 2016 with the support of a 12-billion-dollar loan from the International Monetary Fund.
