The Cabinet approved a draft law on facilitating the procedures of obtaining an industrial license, Minister of industry and Foreign Trade Tarek Qabil said.
The draft law will be submitted to the Parliament for discussion, he added.
The new law should shorten the length of procedures for issuing industrial licences, in addition to overcoming bureaucracy and overlap in specialisations of government agencies, the minister said.
“The proposed law would address the issues of granting operating licences, such as delays, which is a major deterrent to foreign investment,” said Qabil. “The new draft law will reduce the current duration of issuing licenses, 634 days (according to the World Bank), down to just 30 days, which represents a significant administrative revolution in the investment climate in Egypt.”
The law would also contribute to the activation of the Central Bank of Egypt’s (CBE) initiative to provide EGP 200bn for financing SMEs and enable these entities to benefit from available concessional financing, the minister added.
The law states that the requirements for licencing will be written up by a committee affiliated with the Industrial Development Authority (IDA), which specialises in selecting requirements necessary to grant the licence, says Qabil.
The prime minister is to issue a decision for the formation of the committee, and all relevant authorities who are represented in it, including the Federation of Egyptian Industries (FEI), the minister said.
