Egypt’s public-private partnership strategy aims basically to give larger opportunities to the private sector in several fields, and hold partnerships in other sectors, according to Ayman Soliman, CEO of The Sovereign Fund of Egypt (TSFE).
He said that economic sectors can be divided into three colours, on top of which is the green group, from which the government will exit, and its assets in this sector will be offered for privatization.
Then, there will be a yellow group, in which the government will suspend new investments, but will maintain its assets. Soliman refused to disclose the sectors of this group.
The last one is the red group, in which the state will continue to invest due to its sensitivity, mainly health and education. The state will increase its investments in these sectors, as well as enter in partnerships with the private sector.
The government is also working on structuring control, competition, and monopoly, strengthening market mechanisms, creating entities to prevent monopoly and strengthening entities that guarantee healthy competition between the state and the private sector.
Soliman stressed that the Fund is promoting the food and commercial sector, water desalination and renewable energy, all of which are sectors that welcome the entry of the private sector.
On activating the capital market and attracting new capital, he said that the stock exchange is one of the largest entry gates for capital, which reflects the assessment of the entire state’s assets, pointing out that work is underway on the sustainability of the Egyptian Exchange to ensure the success of the propositions by providing quantitative easing mechanisms.
He pointed out that all countries in economic turmoil support their markets, especially as the Egyptian market does not have an abundance of liquidity like other markets, and the state must be present in the stock market to create sustainability in the market, and control market assessments.
Soliman added that the Fund is promoting the entry of new groups specialized in the technical and technological education sector, and there will be a large base for the localization of renewable energy industries, and there are large industry groups that invest in building private academies to find the right workers to serve their investments.
Among the alliances with which the Fund signed or a green hydrogen project in Egypt is investment in Africa, transfer of expertise and technology transfer of renewable energy and water desalination inside Egypt.
