By Rania Emam, Eiman Rashed and Mahmoud Hammad
EFG Hermes have finalised the works of the three days investment conference “The Egyptian economy between horizons and new opportunities”, hosted in Cairo within the last week. President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, the Prime Minister, Governor of Central Bank of Egypt (CEO), and ministries of economic group met a delegation of senior investors and officials of the emerging financial institutions in the regional and international arena which their investments assets amounts to more 3.5 trillion US dollars.
President El-Sisi stressed on the open policy adopted by the government to encourage the investment and its efforts to remove the obstacles against the investors. El-Sisi hailed the vital role which the private sector is playing for achieving the economic growth and creating labour opportunities, clarifying that the bold economic reformations followed by the government within the last months reflect its seriousness to face the chronic problems which suffered the Egyptian economy suffered for decades.
The investment delegation consisted of representative of 27 investment fund and portfolio from the US, the UK, France, Germany, South Africa, and Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC). Also, the conference witnessed a high attendance from the chairmen of board of directors of the leading companies and enterprises in sectors of real estate development, construction, industry, food production, and financial sector.
Karem Awad, the managing Director of EFG Hermes expressed his proud of organising the first investment conference in Egypt since 2010, referring that he found an increasing attention and a great seriousness from the international investment community towards the promising opportunities offered by the Egyptian economy especially after the approval on IMF’s 1.2 billion US Dollars and the devaluation of the pound.
Governor of the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) Tarek Amer illustrated that Egypt Sought to obtain IMF’s loan for mobilising the confidence in the seriousness of the reformation programme, notifying that the financial sector recorded inflows between 7.5 and 8 billion US Dollars since the pound devaluation.
The minister of Finance Amro Al-Garhy confirmed within his meeting with the investment delegation that the ministry will launch the promotional campaign of offering the international bonds within the coming week after selecting four international banks to manage it. Al-Garhy notified that the government started to implement big taxes reformations like passing the added value law by the parliament and the restructure of the taxes management, stressing that the government is moving forward to implement the structural reformations needed by the system of subsidy side by side with providing social safety network to ensure that the support reach its beneficiaries.
The minister of investment Dalia Khorshed pointed out that all ministries exert their efforts to increase the
attraction of foreign investors to the Egyptian market and reinforce the legislative system to protect all sorts of investments. Dalia refereed to the new draft law of investment and the draft law of bankruptcy underlining that the government has embarked on providing the fundamental infrastructure including roads, ports, and electricity within last few months to be one of the tools used for promoting the investment in Egypt internationally within next period. The minister of Trade and Industry Tarek Qabel added that the government gives the priority to specific sectors identified by the Supreme Council for Investment like textile, automotive and chemical industries, notifying that the parliament is discussing now the new strategy of car manufacturing that enable Egypt to compete the leading countries in this industry in the Middle East and African continent.
