An official source at the Egyptian Customs Authority ruled out making any changes in the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between Egypt and Turkey, despite the recent diplomatic tension between the two countries and some calls for escalation, stressing that the agreement remains valid.
The source said all Egypt’s imports from Turkey will be fully exempted from customs by the beginning of 2020, explaining that only a supreme sovereign body can suspend or cancel such agreements.
He added that the final step of lifting import tariff in 2020 represents only 10%, so it won’t cause a big difference in the pricing of Turkish cars as they are limited in Egypt, unlike the Egypt-EU Association Agreement which eliminated all customs on European cars seeing major decline in their prices in the Egyptian market.
The source highlighted the significant decline of the Turkish lira against the US dollar due to Turkey’s bombing of Syria and the US President Donald Trump’s threat to apply economic sanctions on the country. This could also contribute to a decline in prices of Turkish cars imported to Egypt.
