Kuwait cabinet reviews draft for development plan

The cabinet, in a combined meeting with the Supreme Council for Planning and Development last night, discussed the draft for the nation's medium-term development plan for the years 2015 through 2020.
The draft plan, prepared by the Supreme Council, relied on numerous sources, among them the Mackenzie report, the Tony Blair report, studies by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, said Minister of Social Affairs and Labor and State Minister for Planning and Development Hend Al-Sabeeh, in a press statement after the joint meeting.
She noted that the plan deals with challenges facing new economic and human resource realities including the bloated government bureaucracy in the country. It also deals with steps to bring growth and development to the northern regions of the country and providing the fundamentals to change Kuwait into a viable regional financial hub, she said.
The draft plan moreover addresses the need to coopt the private sector in all state growth and development policies, she added.
It also seeks to ameliorate the standard of living and increase the nation's GDP and streamline all the public services in all sectors including health, education, and housing, she said.
She hoped that this draft development plan would resonate well with the parliament whose cooperation would be needed to start as early as possible on the implementation phase of the plan.
Today's joint meeting was chaired by His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarad Al-Sabah, both in his capacity as head of the cabinet and also as president of the Supreme Council for Planning and Development. The meeting took place at Seif Palace