Egypt’s economy to grow 5% in 2021-22 as rebound continues

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Egypt’s economy will grow 5.0% in the fiscal year that ends in June next year, a Reuters survey predicted on Monday, unchanged from analysts’ expectations in a similar poll three months ago and slightly below the government’s target of 5.4%.

Gross domestic product (GDP) of the Arab world’s most populous country was seen growing 5.5% in the fiscal year ending on June 30, 2023, the July 5-26 poll showed.

The government has said it expected the economy grew 2.8% in the 2020/2021 fiscal year despite the huge disruption across the global economy, retaining its place as one of the few emerging markets to achieve GDP growth despite the COVID-19 pandemic.

The pandemic caused tourism to collapse in March 2020 and other parts of the economy to slow, as Egypt maintained a large trade deficit, which rose 9% to $30.6 billion in July 2020-March 2021 compared to the year prior.

Allen Sandeep of Naeem Brokerage said Egypt’s high current account deficit was partly a result of lower tourism revenues.

“The hope is that non-oil foreign direct investment picks up, local industry, local manufacturing takes over, and then you have substitution for imports,” he said.

Inflation was forecast at 6.0% in the fiscal year that ends in June, down slightly from an expectation of 6.4% three months ago. The headline price index is seen at 6.8% in the 2022/2023 fiscal year, revised up from an April projection of 6.2%.

Inflation has slowed as inventories have piled up after the market was throttled by supply chain disruptions last year due to the pandemic. Lower household consumption has also led to lower inflation.

“Now, if we see this COVID dragging on and tourism being quite weak … there will be a time when we cannot go on borrowing,” Sandeep said, adding that Egypt already pays debt investors a large premium over its central bank rates.

Source:https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/egypts-economy-grow-5-2021-22-rebound-continues-2021-07-26/

Egypt’s strategic economic zone to bring more success with more foreign investment

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Egypt’s strategic Suze Canal Economic Zone (SCZone) is poised to see more success as more foreign investment pours in, experts said.

“The industrial and specialized investment parks are one of the mechanisms for luring foreign investment, especially in the industrial field, an essential factor for improving the competitiveness in Egypt,” said Waleed Gaballah, professor of financial and economic jurisdictions at Cairo University.

Allocating industrial parks for certain countries will encourage them to pump investment and create win-win integrated industrial societies, Gaballah, a member of the Egyptian Association for Political Economy, told Xinhua.

He said that Egypt will use foreign investment to create jobs, increase domestic production, and meet its markets’ demands.

Recently, Egypt’s SCZone and the Russian authorities signed a preliminary agreement to expand the Russian industrial park in the zone.

Under the new agreement, the Russian park will be extended, and the first phase of the project will cover an area of 1 million square meters in East Port Said and 500,000 square meters in Ain Sokhna.

The deal with Russia came after SCZone signed on June 20 a framework agreement with a Polish partner to establish a Polish industrial park in Ain Sokhna.

The two deals will bring more to the SCZone, where the Chinese industrial zone TEDA in Ain Sokhna has already yielded fruitful results and is “a model to learn from,” said Gaballah.

Presence in Egypt will also benefit the foreign partners because Egypt is a market of 100 million consumers and a gate for Africa, the professor said.

Also, moving the production process into the SCZone will lower the wages, logistics costs for reaching the consumers and enjoy many other incentives that Egypt could present for investors based on its investment law, he added.

He stressed that the success of the projects will encourage other economies to invest in the SCZone, which will push the development of the area swiftly, noting that the progress of the Chinese industrial zone in Ain Sokhna has encouraged more cooperation between Egypt and China.

Rashad Abdo, an economics professor at Cairo University and head of the Egyptian Forum for Economic and Strategic Studies, also said that building partnerships with other countries by establishing industrial parks has produced positive results.

The partnerships will attract companies to work and invest in the industrial zones. At the same time, Egypt will provide the logistics and infrastructure considered the best in Africa, said Abdo.

Abdo said the SCZone is the most important project to develop the Egyptian economy, noting that Egypt aims to attract more than 250 industrial parks in the SCZone.

Meanwhile, Kareem al-Omda, a professor of the economy with the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport, said that Egypt’s desire to establish more industrial parks was to increase foreign direct investment.

Egypt hopes to attract friendly countries to invest in the industry field, which is the most important sector that will bring added value to the Egyptian economy, increase the GDP, provide job opportunities and open new export markets, said Omada.

The expert said the SCZone is a world-class economic zone because of its strategic location, logistic facilities and legislative benefits.

Some countries have faced the saturation of industrial capacity inside their territories. But by moving to other countries like Egypt, the chances for benefits rise, as Egypt has signed a large number of free trade agreements, which can lower the trading cost.

However, Omada also urged the Egyptian authority to pay more attention to anti-pollution measures and infrastructure maintenance.

Heavy vehicles coming in and out of the SCZone have put more pressure on the roads inside the economic zone and nearby highways.

Source:http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/africa/2021-08/04/c_1310105703.htm

Egypt generated electricity to Libya, seeks to achieve power linkage with Europe

Launching power linkage projects between Egypt and Libya is a strategic goal for the two countries, Egypt’s electricity minister said on Thursday.

Egypt is keen to supply Libya with its needs of electrical power to contribute to the reconstruction of the North African country, Mohamed Shaker told Sky News Arabia.

Egypt succeeded over the past period to generate electrical power to Libya through existing projects, he pointed out.

Shaker added that Egypt is continuously working on strengthening the linkage lines with neighboring countries such as Jordan, Sudan and Libya.

He announced that the goal in the coming period will be achieving electrical linkage with Europe through maritime cables, which will reach more than one country inside Europe.

The minister revealed that his ministry has been studying a project for power linkage with Cyprus, and then to Crete and Greece.

“There is a great contact between Egypt and Greece in this regard,” he said.

Also, there is another project being studied for power linkage between Egypt and Saudi Arabia, with a load of 2,000 mega watts of electrical power.

Source:https://www.egypttoday.com/Article/3/107083/Egypt-generated-electricity-to-Libya-seeks-to-achieve-power-linkage

Central Bank digital currencies: The future of money?

Scion Industrial Engineering

While the pace of the transition varies wildly from country to country, the tide of thought is gradually turning in favor of Central Bank digital currencies (CBDCs). In our latest insight piece, we examine what is motivating central banks to take this step, and the potential implications of CBDC adoption for the economy.

The tiny island-nation of the Bahamas—a place of palm-fringed beaches, azure waters and laid-back locals—seemed an unlikely place to kick off what could be a revolution in global finance.

But that was exactly what happened on 20 October 2020, when the Central Bank of The Bahamas launched the sand dollar, the world’s first central bank digital currency (CBDC) to be made available to the general public. Akin to a digital form of cash, CBDCs are distinct to typical electronic balance sheets in that they act as a direct claim on the central bank rather than on financial intermediaries, and sit in standalone “digital wallets” instead of traditional bank accounts.

The Bahamas wasn’t alone for long: A few weeks later, the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank launched its own digital currency, taking the total number of countries with operational CBDCs to five. Interest extends well beyond the sunny shores of the Caribbean: 81 nations are now actively investigating the technology, while 14 are at the pilot stage, according to data from the Atlantic Council.

Among major economies, China is leading the pack. Domestic trials are well advanced, with the total value of transactions using the e-yuan standing at over USD 5 billion, and more than 20 million citizens holding digital wallets. A further ramp-up is likely ahead of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, which the government views as a chance to showcase the nation’s tech prowess.

In contrast, Western central banks have taken a more measured approach, content for now to publish research papers, engage with industry participants or—in the case of the central banks of Sweden and South Korea for instance—dip their toes in the water via simulated pilot schemes.

While the pace of the transition varies wildly from country to country, the tide of thought is turning in favor of CBDCs. The scarcity of physical cash, amid bank branch closures and a shift to online payments—trends which have been accelerated by the pandemic—is one reason. But more important is the emergence of privately-owned digital currencies, which could undermine the role of central banks at the heart of the financial system. For the U.S. there is an additional concern, with digital currencies raising question marks over the dollar’s future role as the global reserve currency.

Perhaps counterintuitively, the largest and best-known cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin or Ethereum, likely pose the least threat to the dominance of monetary authorities; their highly unpredictable nature makes them ill-suited as a store of value—a crucial prerequisite for money.

On the other hand, digital currencies which are linked to underlying assets—the cryptocurrency Tether is pegged to the USD for example—are of greater concern. These so-called “stablecoins”, far less volatile and thus more useful as a means of payment, have provided the rocket fuel for an ongoing boom in decentralized finance—an over USD 100 billion ecosystem which allows users to trade financial products without the involvement of banking regulators.

The rise of cryptocurrencies has also coincided with the growing presence of technology firms in the financial services space. In China, tech giants Alibaba and Tencent now account for over 90% of the mobile payments market. In the West, a vast number of banks are reliant on the cloud computing infrastructure of Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud. And when it comes to digital currencies, Facebook could begin trials of its own, Diem, later this year.

The market power of these corporate behemoths, with their strong network effects and troves of consumer data, is already generating pushback from governments. In recent months, Joe Biden has signaled his desire to beef up U.S. antitrust regulation, while the EU is currently drafting new rules to rein in Big Tech, and Beijing has launched an assault on some of the country’s best-known homegrown IT firms in a bid to boost competition. Central bankers’ growing interest in CBDCs is thus merely another front in the ongoing battle between markets and the state for control over the economy.

What are the upsides of digital currencies?
Yet there is more to the rising popularity of CBDCs than a simple desire to push back against an encroaching private sector. It is no coincidence that early adopters have been small Caribbean island nations for instance; their fragmented geography makes traditional bank branches difficult to get to, and frequent natural disasters can leave bricks-and-mortar stores and transport infrastructure out of action for prolonged periods.

CBDCs offer a potential solution, by allowing citizens in remote areas to access financial services and pay for goods via their digital wallets without ever stepping foot in a bank, creating a checking account or even having access to the internet.

“After Hurricane Dorian [in 2019], it took banks more than a year to get their branch facilities restored. There are one or two banks that are still in the process of getting back to the state they were in,” commented John Rolle, governor of the Central Bank of the Bahamas, in a recent interview with Bloomberg. “Commerce in those communities is a little bit hamstrung. If you wanted to quickly set up a system where people could trade credit—or anything of that nature—having the wireless platform enables you to do that.”

A lack of banking services is far from unique to the Caribbean. According to World Bank data, there were 1.7 billion adults without a checking account in 2017. Even in the U.S., one of the world’s wealthiest nations in per-capita terms, over 5% of households were still unbanked in 2019, and 14% of adults did not use a payment card in 2017. This huge pool of citizens could stand to benefit from the introduction of CBDCs.

There are other possible upsides too. Publicly-managed digital currencies could provide an electronic paper trail of all transactions, helping to clamp down on fraud and organized crime—particularly if physical cash is replaced entirely. Cross-border payments, which often remain a costly, drawn-out process, have the potential to be simpler, cheaper and more efficient. CBDCs would render monetary policy transmission near-instantaneous, with central banks able to tweak in real time the interest that citizens receive on money stored in digital wallets, allowing for greater fine-tuning of the economy.

If combined with digital IDs, policy could also be made more targeted. For example, a subsidy for underprivileged families paid in digital currency could be programmed to be spent exclusively on food, education or health. Stimulus in the form of helicopter money to drive an economic recovery could be issued with an expiry date, encouraging households to frontload consumption and provide a boost to activity when it’s needed most.

What are the drawbacks of digital currencies?
For now, these purported benefits remain largely hypothetical. The rollout of digital currencies is still at an early phase: In the case of the Bahamas, there were 75,000 sand dollars in circulation at the end of June according to Central Bank data, compared to 500 million dollars in conventional cash.

When it comes to financial inclusion, CBDCs alone may not tackle the root cause of the problem. Factors such as technological illiteracy, a lack of trust in institutions and privacy concerns could be just as or more important than a lack of access to traditional banking services. Plus, some of the oft-cited upsides can be achieved through other means: Hong Kong for instance recently rolled out perishable vouchers to boost household spending via pre-existing fintech apps and the city’s Octopus payment card.

The technology could also have its downsides. Digital wallets would become a prime target for hackers, with large-scale cybersecurity breaches having the potential to critically undermine confidence in the currency. The ability for public authorities to track all financial movements in real time threatens to undermine citizens’ right to privacy. And reserves will drain from the banking system as customers reallocate savings to CBDCs, raising banks’ funding costs and potentially having a negative knock-on effect on credit issuance.

“As deposits migrate to new forms of digital money, banks are assumed to restore their liquidity positions, and hence their ability to continue lending, by issuing long-term wholesale debt”, commented the Bank of England in a recent discussion paper. “Since this is more costly than deposit funding, overall funding costs are assumed to rise. An increase in banks’ funding costs is assumed to increase interest rates on new bank lending.”

Periods of economic crisis could even see full-scale bank runs as households seek refuge in the safety of a Central-Bank-backed currency. As the Bank for International Settlements commented: “While system-wide bank runs into cash are now very rare, given deposit insurance and bank resolution frameworks, there is the possibility that a widely available CBDC could make these events more frequent and severe, by enabling ‘digital runs’ towards the Central Bank with greater speed and scale than is possible with cash.”

To the extent that the Central Bank’s remit expands—such as by directly providing retail services to customers—this could weigh on efficiency and the private sector’s ability to innovate. On the other hand, an overly hands-off role for public authorities could simply lead to renewed market concentration, only this time in the field of digital currencies rather than traditional payments.

Meanwhile, there are fears that CBDCs could undermine domestic currencies by making foreign alternatives readily available, hampering monetary policy transmission in the process. The Argentinian government would be hard-pushed to persuade denizens to continue saving in continually-depreciating pesos if they could easily access digital U.S. dollars, for instance.

The devil’s in the detail
The Bahamas has provided its own answers to some of these concerns. Sand dollars can be accessed via prepaid cards as well as through a mobile app, in a move designed to boost take-up of the currency among less tech-savvy citizens. Limits are in place on account balances and monthly transactions to avoid a sudden pull-out of funds from the traditional financial sector. And the Central Bank has adopted a hybrid architecture, building the infrastructure, technology and regulations but delegating the provision of retail services to a list of vetted firms, in order to harness the creative energy of the private sector. At the same time, competing digital wallets are designed to be interoperable, avoiding consumers becoming trapped in a single company’s digital ecosystem, as is currently the case with mobile payments in China.

This highlights a crucial point: CBDCs, in and of themselves, have the potential to do both harm and good. It is the framework in which they operate that will be key in determining their use to society. On the domestic front, the Bahamas’ model of restrictions on digital currency holdings and an oversight role for monetary authorities appears a sound way to go—at least in the early stages. An even more cautious initial approach could be to limit the use of the digital currency to financial firms as a way of smoothing interbank payments—so-called “wholesale CBDCs”.

Internationally, collaboration between different governments on aspects such as currency design and interoperability will be crucial to ensure that CBDCs realize their potential to facilitate overseas payments. At the same time, rules over non-resident FX holdings will be needed to avoid the erosion of local currencies.

“Central banks stand at the centre of a rapid transformation of the financial sector and the payment system. Innovations such as cryptocurrencies, stablecoins and the walled garden ecosystems of big techs all tend to work against the public good element that underpins the payment system,” said the Bank for International Settlements. “The eventual outcome will depend not only on technology but on the underlying market structure.”

Source:
https://www.focus-economics.com/blog/posts/central-bank-digital-currencies-the-future-of-money

HB Fuller to build adhesive manufacturing facility in Egypt

The Cairo facility will serve increasing demand in the fast-growing markets of Egypt, Turkey, the Middle East and Africa.

US-based adhesives manufacturer HB Fuller has announced plans to build a production facility in Cairo, Egypt.

Scheduled to begin full production next year, the two-storey facility will serve as a regional supply hub and centre of excellence for manufacturing adhesives.

The facility will serve various industries, including the hygiene, packaging, labelling and paper converting markets, across Turkey, the Middle East and Africa.

Covering a 37,000m² total area, the Cairo plant will be designed to meet industry-leading sustainability standards.

The proposed facility will be developed at the CPC Industrial Park.

HB Fuller India, Middle East and Africa managing director Harsh Gupta said: “Egypt has naturally become a main gateway to the region and with the new plant, we will extend our current leadership in Egypt and Turkey and grow our competitive position across the emerging markets of the Middle East and Africa.

“Our expanded presence in Cairo, with a high-tech site designed with future growth in mind, allows us to double our production capacity and advance our technologies.

“This investment represents our commitment to better serving our customer base in close proximity to where they operate, for example, in the markets for hygiene and packaging.”

The investment is expected to create jobs and allow HB Fuller to enhance its quality and capacity in the region.

The strategic investment comes after the company opened an office in Johannesburg, South Africa, last year to expand its regional commercial presence.

source:https://www.packaging-gateway.com/news/hb-fuller-egypt/

Boosting industrial exports: the key to Egypt’s Covid-19 recovery?

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With the effects of Covid-19 still being felt in Egypt, industrial exports are shaping up to be a key driver of the country’s economic recovery.

Highlighting the importance of outward shipments, on March 20 Nevin Gamea, the minister of trade and industry, told media that Egypt planned to increase its exports to $100bn over the long term, up from pre-pandemic levels of around $30bn, by shifting its focus towards more EU, African and Arab markets.

The strategy that will drive this growth involves boosting national industries and increasing exports from small enterprises. In addition, export logistics will be enhanced, for example through the automation of import and export procedures.

The programme also involves developing Upper Egypt and various border areas, as well as supporting projects in the Suez Canal Economic Zone.

President Abdel Fattah El Sisi has also recently underlined the need to increase industrial investment and export levels.

The president called for domestic industrialisation and the localisation of technology to be bolstered, for the gap between exports and imports to be closed, and for the use of foreign currency for imports to be reduced.

In addition, he ordered a comprehensive review and inventory of land that had been allocated to industrial activities but not developed within the mandated timeframe.

Flagship projects lead the way
Economic reforms have been under way in Egypt since November 2016, when the country received a $12bn loan from the IMF and the currency was floated.

The fund identified private sector-led growth as a key priority, and reforms have largely been aimed at improving the business environment to attract private investment.

“Measures should be taken, when possible, to reduce business costs and ease access to financing because the private sector needs to be the engine of Egypt’s economic growth,” President El Sisi told OBG last year.

A significant move came at the end of 2019, when the government and the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) launched a $6.4bn initiative to boost domestic manufacturing by giving medium-sized factories access to subsidised loans at a declining 10% interest rate.

A central focus of this drive has been the development of industrial zones, the largest of which is the Suez Canal Economic Zone, where the integration of logistics and the clustering of manufacturing value chains have been shown to improve efficiency and lower costs.

Both public and private industrial zones are competing over the infrastructure they can provide and their ability to integrate the manufacturing and export processes.

However, some issues have been reported with regard to the capacity of publicly funded industrial zones to connect incoming enterprises to infrastructure networks, particularly with regard to exports.

A deal signed earlier this year between the General Authority for Land and Dry Ports and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is indicative of efforts to overcome logistical shortcomings.

The deal is worth €1m, which will go towards advisory services on the construction of a dry port and logistical centre in the 10th of Ramadan City, a city outside Cairo with a substantial industrial zone.

This is part of a comprehensive plan to establish a network of dry ports and logistical centres across the country.

In February it was announced that five consortia were interested in a tender to build the 10th of Ramadan City dry port, among them the Elsewedy Electric-DB Schenker consortium, another led by Dubai’s DP World and a third led by the China International Marine Containers Group. The tender is expected to be formally issued in the middle of this year.

On a related note, in January it was announced that Egypt had signed a €19bn deal with Siemens Mobility and local companies to build a 1000-km high-speed rail network.

Work was set to begin forthwith on the 460-km first section, which will connect El Alamein on the Mediterranean to Ain Sokhna on the Red Sea, while also passing through the as yet unnamed New Administrative Capital, which is currently under construction.

Meanwhile, a new electric train is set to come online at the end of this year, connecting 10th of Ramadan City to the New Administrative Capital and Cairo.

Such efforts should go a long way to spurring private sector investment in industry, and driving a concomitant rise in income from exports.

“Looking ahead, Egypt is in a favourable position to promote growth in industries where it has comparative advantages and can add value,” Mohamed Al Kammah, CEO of Elsewedy Industrial Development, told OBG.

“In order to best leverage growth in these industries, key stakeholders should invest in industrial infrastructure in the near term to ensure long-term capacity along the value chain.”

Source:https://oxfordbusinessgroup.com/news/boosting-industrial-exports-key-egypt%E2%80%99s-covid-19-recovery

Egypt’s economy to grow 5% in 2021-22 as rebound continues

Scion Industrial Engineering pvt. Ltd.

Egypt’s economy will grow 5.0% in the fiscal year that ends in June next year, a Reuters survey predicted on Monday, unchanged from analysts’ expectations in a similar poll three months ago and slightly below the government’s target of 5.4%.

Gross domestic product (GDP) of the Arab world’s most populous country was seen growing 5.5% in the fiscal year ending on June 30, 2023, the July 5-26 poll showed.

The government has said it expected the economy grew 2.8% in the 2020/2021 fiscal year despite the huge disruption across the global economy, retaining its place as one of the few emerging markets to achieve GDP growth despite the COVID-19 pandemic.

The pandemic caused tourism to collapse in March 2020 and other parts of the economy to slow, as Egypt maintained a large trade deficit, which rose 9% to $30.6 billion in July 2020-March 2021 compared to the year prior.

Allen Sandeep of Naeem Brokerage said Egypt’s high current account deficit was partly a result of lower tourism revenues.

“The hope is that non-oil foreign direct investment picks up, local industry, local manufacturing takes over, and then you have substitution for imports,” he said.

Inflation was forecast at 6.0% in the fiscal year that ends in June, down slightly from an expectation of 6.4% three months ago. The headline price index is seen at 6.8% in the 2022/2023 fiscal year, revised up from an April projection of 6.2%.

Inflation has slowed as inventories have piled up after the market was throttled by supply chain disruptions last year due to the pandemic. Lower household consumption has also led to lower inflation.

“Now, if we see this COVID dragging on and tourism being quite weak … there will be a time when we cannot go on borrowing,” Sandeep said, adding that Egypt already pays debt investors a large premium over its central bank rates.

Source:https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/egypts-economy-grow-5-2021-22-rebound-continues-2021-07-26/

Industrial sector is largest contributor to growth of the Egyptian economy

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Egypt was one of the few countries that recorded during the crisis an economic growth of about 3.57 percent during 2019/2020,” Minister of Trade and Industry, Nevine Gamea, said.

Gamea explained in a statement, Thursday, that the industrial sector is the locomotive of economic growth in Egypt and contributed about 17.1 percent to the GDP in 2019/2020, compared to about 16.4 percent in the previous year, and thus became the largest contributor to Egyptian economic growth, compared to other economic sectors.

She added that the manufacturing sector achieved a positive growth rate during 2019/2020 of about 1.4 percent, although it was less than what it achieved in the previous year, which recorded 2.8 percent, but remained positive in the year of the pandemic as a reflection of the measures taken to strengthen the industrial sector during the crisis.

Gamea explained that, thanks to the success of the first phase of the economic reform program, Egypt launched the second phase of the National Structural Reform Program in 2021, which focuses on raising the competitiveness of 3 main sectors, including manufacturing, agriculture, communications and information technology, to increase their contribution to the GDP.

She stressed that Egypt succeeded in achieving many positive economic indicators during the Corona crisis, thanks to the economic reform program that it pursued since 2016 and the measures it took to confront the pandemic, which amounted to about 541 measures from March 2019 to May 2021.

This came in the context of the Minister’s speech, during the virtual opening session of the high-level meeting to launch the report on the production and export transformation, which was organized by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in cooperation with the German Agency for International Cooperation, the African Bank for Import and Export, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization “UNIDO” and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa.

With regard to industry and trade, the minister pointed out that the second phase of the structural reforms program aims to raise investment rates in the manufacturing sector in a sustainable manner, increase its participation in the gross domestic product, localize and deepen industry, develop local supply chains, and integrate at higher stages in global and regional value chains, and increasing the international competitiveness of manufacturing industries and promoting industrial exports.

“The program targets the food industries, the pharmaceutical industries and medical supplies, the textile and ready-made garments industries, and the engineering industries that include cars and household appliances,” she continued.

Gamea pointed out that there are many opportunities that will enable Egypt to achieve its goals for the second phase of the structural reform program thanks to the political and security stability that Egypt is witnessing, in addition to the huge leap in infrastructure development, and the measures that have been taken and are constantly being taken to enable micro-enterprises and SMEs to take advantage of the industry’s growing potential.

She noted that the growth axes included focusing on increasing non-traditional exports, encouraging industries that can compete in global markets, and working to attract investments, in addition to deepening local industrialization due to Egypt’s large domestic market, as well as the numerous bilateral and multilateral trade agreements that contribute significantly to the growth of the Egyptian exports.

The minister indicated that work is underway on legislative, procedural and digital development axes in order to reduce the time and cost of export and import in order to strengthen the industrial and trade sectors.

She added that Egypt aims to achieve integration with global and regional production and value chains, especially African ones, especially in light of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement, as Egypt’s priorities during the next stage include developing the Egyptian economy to be more innovative and benefiting from advanced technologies, not only as an end-use market.

source:https://www.egypttoday.com/Article/3/105839/Industrial-sector-is-largest-contributor-to-growth-of-the-Egyptian