Nevine Gamea — the Minister of Trade and Industry and CEO of the Medium, Small, and Micro Enterprises Development Agency (MSMEDA) — stressed the agency’s keenness to encourage owners of projects operating in the informal sector to reconcile their status in order to ensure the stability and continuity of their projects and enhance their profits.
She also called on owners of such projects to rehabilitate their businesses to benefit from the state’s laws that support investment, especially the advantages and facilities mentioned in the new project development law.
Gamea stated that legalising projects operating in the informal sector is carried out in coordination with various agencies concerned with the state and comes within the framework of implementing the directives of the political leadership by supporting these projects and creating a legal and safe investment climate for them. This ensures the continuity of their operation, expansion, and rehabilitation to accommodate more sustainable job opportunities.
She also revealed that the agency’s branches in Greater Cairo and the governorates have issued more than 4,000 temporary licenses to regularise the status of projects operating in the informal sector, including 3,116 commercial projects, 216 industrial projects, and 11 projects of liberal professions and animal production projects, adding that the final licenses were issued for 2,000 of these projects.
Furthermore, the minister indicated that the one-stop-shop units in the agency’s branches in Cairo and the governorates issue a temporary operating license to reconcile the conditions of informal projects for a period of up to five years until the final operating license is issued, provided that the license is issued within 10 days from the date the project owner submits the project’s establishment documents, such as a taxation card, commercial register, and initial approvals, for a small fee.
Gamea stressed that once the projects are reconciled, they can benefit from a package of services, including peremptory and simplified tax treatment, the inadmissibility of tax accounting for the years prior to the date of submitting the application for regularisation, and a temporary permit to operate for up to five years while being recognised and protected by all state agencies.
