In its third meeting on Monday, the Supreme Council for Investment approved the proposal by Tarek Amer, governor of the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE), to establish a National Council for Payments, according to recommendations posed in earlier meetings. The necessary steps to establish the council will be taken soon.
According to Amer, the council will work to pivot Egypt towards a cashless community and contribute to achieving sound, transparent financial transactions. “It will also ensure the state obtains its arrears and merge the formal and informal economies together,” he added.
During the meeting, which was attended by the prime minister, CBE governor, and ministers of defence, military production, interior, justice, finance, and investment, as well as chiefs of the General Intelligence Directorate, Administrative Control Authority, the General Authority for Investment and Free Zones (GAFI), and the Federation Of Egyptian Industries, the executive situation of previous decisions taken in the previous meeting on 4 December were reviewed.
Minister of Investment, Dalia Khorshid, said that the final draft for the new investment law has been finalised by the cabinet and sent to the State Council, in preparation to sending it to the parliament, as part of the steps required to pass legislations to implement further decisions by the Supreme Council for Investment.
Moreover, the meeting also touched on a number of topics, including the plan to promote direct and indirect investments in 2017. The council approved a suggested promotion plan and reviewed the executive steps taken to establish a company that will be tasked with promoting direct and indirect investments, both locally and abroad.
The meeting addressed the integrated investment map for Egypt, which Khorshid presented and was prepared by the ministry. The map includes the investment objectives and opportunities available for investment in various sectors, which have been divided according to geographical regions to fully cover Egypt. The president had given directives to complete a vision for investment in Egypt in order to maximise the economic feasibility of investment opportunities and to provide new job opportunities. He also said that the investment map should contain national projects, new communities, the Suez Canal Economic Zone, and the government’s IPOs programme.
Meanwhile, Khorshid also presented a report prepared by the ministerial committee that examined the procedures required to improve Egypt’s ranking in the Competitiveness Report issued by the World Economic Forum and the Doing Business Report issued by the World Bank. These are the two reports concerned with rating Egypt’s position according to international investment indicators.
The attendees also discussed the implementation of the IPO programme, for which the president had directed to accelerate the promotion in Egypt and abroad.
