Dr Sahar Nasr Inaugurates Middle East Investment Conference 2018

Dr. Sahar Nasr inaugurated the 2018 Middle East Investment Conference, in presence of Chairman of the Egyptian Exchange (EGX) Mr. Mohamed Farid Saleh and Chairman of CFA Society in Egypt Mr. Ahmed Abou El-Saad.

The Minister expressed her pleasure with Egypt’s hosting of the regional conference for the first time and emphasized that Egypt’s organization of such event reflected the success of the economic reform program while highlighting the government’s continuous endeavors to restore Egypt’s status as one of the world’s key investment destinations.

The Minister also indicated that the government targeted attracting investments in labor-intensive sectors and those in which has competitive advantages, particularly lagging regions such as Upper Egypt and Sinai. A case in point is the successful partnership with the private sector in developing the energy sector, especially renewable energy.

Egypt’s investment opportunities are marketed by the government depending on Egypt’s 100 million-consumer-market, besides being a gate for the African Continent, given Egypt’s commercial agreements with several African countries.

Upon taking the office of the Ministry of Investment, stated Dr. Nasr, she was mainly focused on solving businessmen’s problems related to bureaucracy and some legislations and economic difficulties. Due to the economic reform program, the state could be solving several problems, beginning from providing foreign exchange, facilitating access to finance and land, providing integrated investment services and ending with the Investors Service Center.

Moreover, the Minister added that the situation has changed and MIIC’s key role has become to meet with several investors willing to make use of Egypt’s investment opportunities

. She explained that most investments came to Egypt from the EU, the US and Arab countries and the government developed a strategy to attract investments from East Asia, especially China which already began investing in the Suez Canal Axis, besides developing traditional sources of foreign investments.

With regard to Egypt’s growth-leading sector, the Minister stated that there was a clear breakthrough in the real estate sector which supports several other economic sectors and that the government established several cities and industrial and investment zones within few years, besides providing several facilitations to such sector which guarantees sustainable growth and development.

Egypt has competitive advantages in the availability of land and labor as well as tax and non-tax facilitations, in addition to the relocation of industries and products imported by Egypt, the Minister added.

Further, Dr. Nasr mentioned that MIIC gave due regard to small businesses and entrepreneurs and that the Movable Guarantees Registry, the new Companies Law and the financial inclusion strategy would provide finance opportunities and access to the market by small investors.

President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi was strongly committed to economic reform and was keen on transforming reform plans to tangible results, noted the Minister, who stated that the government was proceeding with the financial inclusion program so that all citizens could benefit from the reform process.

During the conference, Dr. Nasr was honored in recognition of her efforts in supporting the investment environment.