In a country like Egypt whose population exceeds 100 million, the ruling authority casts the population increase as a threat that hinders development plans, while economic voices see that citizens are the producers and consumers who manage the market and the economy as a whole.

And recently, government moves to cope with the increase in population have increased, and it has become customary for the statements of official officials - chiefly the President of the Republic - to include speech about the burdens imposed by high fertility rates, and thus justify calls for birth control.

Last week, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi spoke of the country’s need for a trillion dollars to cope with the burdens of population growth, adding that high rates of development require a decrease in the reproductive rate to become "less than a child per family."

But what is interesting is that what Sisi says and what his senior officials and media figures echoed behind him regarding the burden of the population contradicts in its content with what was stated by officials in his government and revealed by official bodies regarding the fact that citizens have the upper hand in feeding state revenues.

In light of what Egypt has witnessed in recent years of decline in the fields of industry and agriculture, and even in the revenues of an important facility such as the Suez Canal, people themselves remain the main source of income for the Egyptian government, whether those who live inside the country or those who left it abroad.

According to a report by the Ministry of Finance, taxes paid by Egyptians made up the overwhelming majority of the Egyptian state's revenues, as they reached 76.4% of state revenues in the fiscal year 2019-2020, or about 601.4 billion pounds out of 787 billion.

As for those who went out to work outside Egypt, their remittances in foreign currency represent the first source of national income, as their value in the fiscal year 2019-2020 amounted to about $ 27 billion, according to the reports of the Central Bank, as mentioned by the Minister of Immigration, Nabila Makram, to the local media, noting that the number of Egyptians working abroad reached about 13 million, about 13% of the total population.

Workers during the opening of the Suez Canal branch, which the authority was so proud of (Al-Jazeera)

Young people

The government may be in a real crisis if the largest percentage of its people are in stages of disability that need more care than they can contribute to production. However, official statistics say that about half of Egypt's population is about 47% in the age group between 15 and 44 years, and about 26 % Less than 10 years.

This means that Egypt is a young country whose human wealth can accelerate growth, according to economic observers.

According to the Information and Decision Support Center affiliated to the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, Egyptian youth have taken first place in worker productivity on the African continent as a whole.

In its report, the government center relied on the indicator "Average worker productivity in Africa 2020" issued by the African Development Bank Group.

However, the Authority believes that there is a gap between the number of population and development indicators, and according to government officials, the rate of economic growth must be equal to 3 times the rate of population growth.

Official data say that the Egyptian economic growth rate reached 5.6% in 2019, while the population growth rate ranged between 2 and 2.5%, which means that the rate of economic growth needs to reach about 9%.

A study prepared by the Center for Political and Strategic Studies of the Future of the Nation Party with the parliamentary majority - which is considered the party of power - showed that the danger of the population increase lies in the unbalanced geographical distribution of citizens, as the total population resides in only 7.8% of Egypt's area of ​​one million square kilometers. It stresses public utilities, and leads to traffic congestion and deterioration of infrastructure.

The study added that the population increase constitutes a pressure on the state's economic resources, such as increasing public expenditures and a reflection on the budget deficit, and pressure on government social services, in addition to increasing dependency ratios, unemployment rates and poverty rates.

Population is an important resource for the economy, according to economists (Al-Jazeera)

Population wealth

For his part, Professor of Economics at the University of Auckland, Dr. Mustafa Shaheen, described the population as the great powers of the economy, adding that scientific theories consider citizens one of the basic elements of any productive process.

Shaheen explained to Al-Jazeera Net that people are the largest producer and consumer market, so the greater the population, the greater the need for building factories and investing in agriculture, which means employing manpower.

In comparison to the state of the Egyptian economy, it does not meet its basic needs in terms of agricultural and industrial products, and thus imports increase and unemployment rises. Then the government statements come out to talk about the decline in growth, blaming the population, according to Shaheen.

In the same context, the economic expert, Dr. Abd al-Nabi Abdul-Muttalib rejected all theories that talk about population increase being an obstacle to development, stressing that people are an important economic resource.

On the contrary, Egypt derives its economic importance from the fact that it is a large market with more than 100 million consumers, according to Abdul-Muttalib told Al-Jazeera Net.

"This huge number of consumers generates a great demand for goods and services, and effective demand is the main driver of production," he said, explaining that the problem lies in the lack of planning, stressing that what is required is not birth control, but good management of resources.

Regarding Egyptian labor abroad, the economist said that it transfers to Egypt more than $ 26 billion annually, which is greater than what the country exports in a whole year.

Lifebuoy

Contrary to the theories that consider population growth to be an advantage and not a threat, the journalist Ahmed Al-Tayeb believes that the increase in the population increases unemployment rates, impedes movement within society and constitutes an impediment for the Egyptian family in its daily living and future.

In an article published in the Al-Youm Al-Sabea newspaper, which is close to the authority, under the title "Family Planning is a lifeline to limit the population increase," Al-Tayeb called for the necessity of popular response to government calls regarding birth control.

However, Al-Tayeb considered that the decrease in the number of people or their stalled growth is not evidence of progress, adding, "This is why the government, in its war to confront the phenomenon, must also adapt the economy to the increase in population and the exploitation of manpower."

The journalist presented methods to adapt the economy to the increase in population, including the application of expansion policies in all sectors, especially the agricultural sector, and benefiting from the experiences of countries that were a model in the exploitation of the workforce, such as China and Malaysia.

False statistics

The interesting thing is that there are doubts about the population census in Egypt, and then about the governmental goals of adopting birth control plans based on false accounts according to experts, including the economic analyst Dr. Wael Al-Nahhas, who says that the population clock does not reflect the real reality in Egypt, considering that the number of Egyptians reached 100 million people is not settled yet.

Al-Nahas proved his opinion - in press statements - by referring to the stability of Egypt's consumption of wheat from 2011 to 2020 despite the increase in the population of more than 20 million people, according to official data, as well as more than 5 million Arab expatriates in recent years.

"We had 8 million acres, of which 2 million acres were diverted due to encroachments on agricultural lands, and despite this we have a surplus of vegetables, and an increase in agricultural yield figures," explaining that the announced population figures do not exclude deaths from them.

"How can the government have an inventory of the number of Egyptians, while the Ministry of Supply cannot count the beneficiaries of the ration card?"