Egypt’s Minister of Finance Mohamed Maait has revealed that 1,601 companies have benefited from the second phase of the lump-sum payment initiative of export subsidy dues owed by the Export Development Fund (EDF).
Maait added that the government has launched six successful initiatives to repay export subsidy dues with the EDF. The latest initiative took into account a 15% expedited payment discount, with payments made during 7 to 28 February.
By the end of last February, EGP 210.7m had been distributed to 43 exporting companies that joined the second phase of the initiative, the minister said.
He added that the state plans to disburse late dues for the rest of the exporting companies joining this phase on 28 April and 17 June.
Maait said that the government has disbursed approximately EGP 21.5bn within a year to support the export sector, through the six initiatives.
A total of 1,069 exporting companies have benefited from the first phase, with all companies having spent all the late dues over the last year.
Adviser to Nevine Mansour, Vice Ministry of Finance for fiscal policies, 2,500 exporting companies have benefited from the previous five initiatives put forward by the government to pay back sums to exporters.
A total of EGP 5.6bn was dispersed during the last fiscal year (FY) 2019/20, in addition to EGP 2.4bn during the period from 1 July to 25 November.
Mansour added that all exporting companies benefiting from the first phase of the initiative spent all late dues with the EDF, during the months of November and December, with a total value of EGP 13.5bn.
