New Law to Encourage Energy Investments

The Ministry of Electricity has finished drafting a new unified law for electricity to be submitted to the parliament. The law will be the primary legislation for the energy sector in Egypt and it encourages investors to produce electricity from renewable energies and other sources.

Electricity Minister Hassan Younis said that the law would reassure investors to invest in these long-term areas. This would also become a substitute for government guarantees currently in place in this context, he added. It was also decided to establish a fund, affiliated to the Cabinet, to finance renewable energy. The project aims at producing electricity from renewable sources, such as the sun and wind. It also supports the use of sun-heaters.

The fund will be financed by about $ 400 million through the support program of economic development policies affiliated to the African Development Bank in order to promote clean renewable energies and enhance energy efficiency to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and maintain the ozone layer.