Ehab Saeed — Chairperson of the Board of Directors of the General Division for Communications, Electronic Payments, and Financial Services at the General Federation of Chambers of Commerce — said that the Central Bank of Egypt’s decision to raise the interest rate was expected and aimed to control high inflation rates in the market.
He noted that the Egyptian economy has opportunities for great growth over the coming period.
Saeed added that the communications and information technology sector will be slightly negatively affected by these decisions after the high operating costs, pointing to the importance of the government providing a new package of investment incentives to encourage investors, manufacturers, and producers to pump more investments into the market over the coming period.
He also said that the process of moving the government to the New Administrative Capital (NAC) will maximise efforts to implement the transition to a digital economy with the expansion of services and electronic payment solutions to facilitate and motivate citizens to forgo cash transactions.
Furthermore, Saeed praised the continuous presidential interest in supporting the implementation of the digital transformation and financial inclusion system and the state’s efforts to provide all facilities and overcome obstacles for Egyptian companies to integrate digitally, stressing the success of the Ministry of Finance in advancing the national economy in the face of successive crises, including the global economic crisis and the coronavirus pandemic.
Moreover, he said that reports indicate that Egypt is among the first countries in the Middle East and Africa to implement the electronic invoice system, and this confirms the state’s interest in transforming the digital economy, providing government services electronically, and increasing the growth rates of electronic commerce within Egypt’s 2030 Vision for Sustainable Development.
Saeed also added that the division will hold a meeting in the coming days to study market developments and identify the most important challenges facing the telecommunications and electronic payments industry, noting that the expansion in the provision of company establishment services by default will lead to the integration of the informal economy into the formal one and growth in the number of emerging and small companies in Egypt.
