A survey carried out by the Information and Decision Support Center of the Cabinet (IDSC) indicated that 11.9 percent of respondents are not aware of the problem.

According to the survey, 52.5 percent estimated that each family should only have two children, while 29.1 percent raised the figure to three.

Overpopulation is one of the main challenges facing Egypt today and constitutes an obstacle to national development efforts, the IDSC said.

On several occasions, President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi warned about this situation and called for lower birth rates.

The Minister of Planning and Economic Development, Hala El-Saeed, warned days ago that it is difficult to achieve progress in the objectives of sustainable development without controlling population growth rates.

At the beginning of the year, the Fitch rating agency stated that Egypt’s population could exceed 158.8 million inhabitants by 2050. However, the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics indicated that the country could reach 192 million people by 2052 if the current growth rates keep going up.

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