The World Bank mission started its visit to Egypt on Tuesday to hold a series of meetings with government agencies. The aim is to discuss technical cooperation with the government on implementing the state ownership policy document and benefiting from the best international practices in managing state-owned assets. The mission’s work will continue until the end of this week.
The World Bank mission began its work by holding a workshop at the Ministry of International Cooperation. The workshop focused on the most important general features to enhance the joint efforts with the World Bank. This would help in identifying the best international practices in managing state-owned assets in a way that maximizes the benefit from those assets, in light of the technical support efforts provided by the World Bank in this area. The workshop also discussed the government’s vision regarding implementing the state ownership policy document, enhancing the role of the private sector, and selecting the best financing tools and programs that are offered by the World Bank in this regard.
The workshop addressed the policy of distributing profits to state-owned enterprises and its importance in implementing the state-ownership policy. It also presented the most important economic indicators of the Egyptian economy, which included non-tax revenues from state-owned companies.
The mission is scheduled to hold some technical meetings and workshops with relevant government agencies, including the Information and Decision Support Center. This comes within the framework of the Egyptian state’s directions to empower the private sector and enhance its role in achieving comprehensive development.
The program being discussed with the World Bank complements the role played by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) as an advisor to the State IPO Program, which aims to stimulate efforts to attract investments, enhance technical cooperation and knowledge to manage state-owned assets, expand the base of private sector participation in development, increase economic growth rates, and provide various opportunities due to boosting private sector business.
Egypt is one of the founding countries of the World Bank, and the third largest shareholder in the Middle East and North Africa region. The World Bank is one of Egypt’s most important development partners, as it started supporting the development program in 1959. Since then, the World Bank has financed 175 projects, with a total of nearly $26bn in many important sectors, including infrastructure, human capital, public sector reforms, and private sector development.
Additionally, the IFC’s total investments in the private sector in Egypt during the period from 2020 to 2023 amounted to about $2.46bn, including $1.7bn in the current portfolio, as well as the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, whose investments amounted to $470m in the form of guarantees for 17 ongoing projects in sectors of infrastructure, manufacturing, renewable energy, and others.
