CAIRO - 14 June 2022: The Egyptian government aims to attract $10 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI) annually, Minister of Finance Mohamed Maait stated.
Maait elaborated that this comes in a manner that ensures raising economic growth rates, creating more job opportunities, and enhancing aspects of spending on improving the standard of living of citizens and upgrading the services provided to them.
“We are ready to contribute to overcoming obstacles in a way that helps achieve comprehensive and sustainable development,” the minister added.
He confirmed that the Climate Summit, which Egypt will host next November, is an additional platform to promote development investments in our new republic, as the national strategy for climate change provides promising opportunities for investment in green projects, based on a business environment that is more attractive to the private sector, calling on companies Korean investment in agriculture, industry, transport, energy and water.
The Minister added that the document “State Ownership Policy” and “Golden License” are a strong start to empowering the private sector, Raising its contribution to 50 percent of the GDP within 3 years, and accelerating the start of production and investment activity for new projects that will start in the fields of “green hydrogen, electric cars, infrastructure, seawater desalination and renewable energy.”
The minister pointed out that the electronic systems for taxes and customs aim to facilitate and automate procedures for the business community, enhance governance, achieve tax and customs justice, and stimulate investment, explaining: “We are continuing to develop the ACI system for pre-registration of shipments, in a way that contributes to achieving the desired goals in reducing shipments. Customs release time, facilitating the movement of internal and external trade, and reducing the cost of the import and export process.”
The minister stressed that the indicators of financial performance during the past 11 months were stable and positive despite the severity of the exceptional global shocks, as reflected in the World Bank raising its growth rate forecast during the current fiscal year from 5.9 percent to 6.1 percent, which embodies a new international certificate of confidence.
He pointed out that the Egyptian economy is growing and growing in a more diversified manner with development and national projects in which 5 million citizens work, and the government’s orientation towards continuing the construction and development process is reinforced in light of global economic challenges; to improve people’s lives and preserve employment.
The minister noted that advanced digital transformation projects in accordance with the latest international standards contributed to the growth of tax revenues by 16.2 percent during the period from July 2021 to May 2022, reflecting efforts to integrate the informal economy into the formal economy, and to expand the tax base, and helped enable the government to increase spending on social protection by 14.3 percent to mitigate “inflation imported from abroad”, and 21.2 percent growth in spending on the health sector, 18 percent in education and 20.9 percent for public investments.
“We aim to record a growth rate of more than 6 percent, a primary surplus of 1.2 percent, a reduction in the overall budget deficit to 6.1 percent, and a debt ratio of about 86 percent by the end of this month,” he added.
Tue, Jun. 14, 2022
