Dr. Mostafa Madbouly, Prime Minister, during the press conference held today, to clarify the decisions of the Supreme Investment Council, and the attending ministers, was keen to open the door for dialogue and ask questions by journalists and media professionals, to answer and clarify them.
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In response to a question from a journalist about the follow-up and oversight mechanisms required to implement the package of decisions announced today that encourage the private sector and investment in general, and overcoming the challenges facing implementation; Dr. Mostafa Madbouly explained that the Cabinet discussed today “sustainable follow-up mechanisms” for all of these decisions; to ensure its implementation.
In response to a question regarding clarification of the measures taken by the state with regard to the profits of the foreign investor, as well as the mechanisms for providing foreign currency, in order to counter the rumors raised on these issues, Dr. Hala Al-Saeed, Minister of Planning and Economic Development, explained that the problem of providing currency is a temporary one; Due to the geopolitical conditions the world is going through and the resulting pressure on the foreign currency as a result of the sharp rise in the prices of strategic materials, such as wheat and energy, which led to an increase in the import bill.
In this context, the Minister of Planning indicated that in order to confront this problem and increase the volume of revenues, short and medium-term measures were taken by the state, stressing that the revenues of the tourism sector increased by 25%, and the revenues of the Suez Canal increased by about 30%. Also, the volume of exports in general, and imports decreased by 34%, which led to an improvement in the trade balance.
The minister also referred to the proposals program to encourage foreign investment, increase dollar resources and achieve balance in the foreign exchange market, explaining also the agreement of the Council of Ministers to rationalize investment spending, especially that which has a dollar component, in order to save state resources and stimulate the participation of the private sector and the investor.
With regard to the investor’s profits, the Prime Minister explained that the Egyptian state during the first months of the crisis did not witness any problem related to the transfer of the investor’s profits, and the evidence for this is that in the midst of the crisis, the state allowed the exit of $ 21 billion of what is called “hot money”, which proves that the state It did not place any restrictions on the entry and exit of investors’ funds.
Dr. Mostafa Madbouly affirmed that the Egyptian state is fully committed to facilitating the exit of investors’ profits, and said: “I would like to reassure the Egyptians that Egypt is capable of bridging the dollar gap… Today there is a very clear plan for that.”
During the conference, another question was raised about the possibility of conflicts or differences in the implementation of decisions issued by the Supreme Council for Investment between the governorates and the various competent authorities in the state, following Counselor Omar Marwan, Minister of Justice, that the practical reality showed that there is a difference in the application of some decisions and laws between ministry and ministry. Or between one governorate and another, but we are in the process of issuing detailed regulatory decisions during the next few days that will be circulated to all ministries, governorates and various agencies, regarding dealing in some specific points.
Dr. Mostafa Madbouly commented on this point by referring to the need to follow up on the implementation of the decisions issued, and therefore there was an emphasis today on the importance of each minister following up on his decisions or procedures that are taken, because there are many measures, but there is a problem we face, which is that some The employees explain the decisions that they may face some challenges, stressing that the coming period requires speed and extreme daring in making and implementing decisions, and there is a presidential directive in that and that dealing is done through digitization and speedy implementation, to reduce direct friction between the investor and the employees, and there is a topic that we seek to implement It is an electronic platform that serves every investor who wishes to establish or liquidate a company, and there are many electronic services that are prepared in cooperation with the Ministries of Planning, Communications and Information Technology, so that we have nearly 200 electronic services in the “Digital Egypt” platform.
In response to a question about the extent to which citizens have benefited from the decisions and incentives taken for the investment sector in Egypt, the Prime Minister indicated that whenever there is an increase in the volume of investments, this is followed by an increase in the amount of hard currency available, which reflects positively on the value of the Egyptian pound. And he contributes to his evaluation of a real value, adding that these decisions also contribute to providing more job opportunities for young people, saying: “The state is required to provide one million new job opportunities annually,” pointing in this regard to the state’s efforts to pump more public investments to provide more opportunities the job.
He added: The volume of investments that will be injected by local and foreign investors will contribute to reducing the inflation rate, which will be reflected positively on the level of commodity prices.
