Cairo, Egypt: Dr Mustafa Madbouly, Prime Minister of the Cabinet, held a meeting at the government headquarters in the new administrative capital to review the procedures of the implementation of the new stimulus package for industrial investment introduced by President Abdul Fattah Al-Sisi, President of the Republic, in the presence of Engineer / Ahmed Samir, Minister of Trade and Industry, Engineer / Mohamed Abdul Karim, Chairman of the General Authority for Industrial Development, and Duaa Salima, CEO of Industry Update Center on September 03, 2023.
According to the update by the Cabinet of Egypt, the Prime Minister confirmed that the meeting is to explore the regulations needed to implement the incentive package that the President gave to national-priority industrial projects, noting that these incentives are aimed at deepening domestic manufacturing and increasing export prospects.
The Prime Minister quickly charged the bill on these stimuli was completed, to be presented to the Cabinet, then sent to Parliament for discussion and approval.
On his part, the Minister of Trade and Industry explained that the new incentives set by President to drive industrial investment are aimed at achieving one or more objectives, which include deepening local manufacturing by attracting investments in the production supply industries and covering local needs for strategic goods, especially pharmaceuticals, while attracting advanced global industrial technologies to the market Egypt, in addition to reducing the trade deficit and limiting the demand on the dollar for imports by providing these products locally, along with expanding exports as another direction to reduce the trade deficit and increasing operating rates.
The Minister also presented a list of strategic industries targeted with that stimulus in order to reduce the import bill of products of those industries, which include multiple production inputs to vital sectors, and he also reviewed a list of major local companies importing those products, which can contribute to boosting opportunities for local manufacturing of these important products instead of Importing, as well as the large global companies producing it, which can be attracted to manufacture these products locally to benefit from Egypt’s promised tariffs.
As per the update, during the meeting, the Chairman of the General Authority for Industrial Development reviewed the most important decisions and actions taken by the body during the year, stating that 1301 projects were granted to help them complete the land seriousness certification from the date of the decision to last August.
He added that the background course for issuing operating licenses procedures was developed and revised, and the industrial license was granted to the investor within a maximum of 20 days in advance and from 1 to 7 days in the notification system, where 6307 notification licenses were granted and 198 in advance, during 2022/2023.
Continuing: Unlicensed industrial installations have been legalized with 290 facilities from the date of the decision issued up to last August, in implementation of Law No. 19 of 2023.
He pointed out the simplification of annual tracking procedures for the license and same-day issuance with 8745 licenses and the unification of the technical examination form, with 19615 inspections done in a year, and this includes all industrial activities.
He said that the period of approval for factories had been extended – for a year – previous ones obtaining an operating license from municipal devices or local units and did not fulfil their conditions within the period set in the Executive Procedure of Law 15 of 2017, which began in 2017 and ended in 2019, in fact, 99 licenses, of which 30 licenses are for indoor facilities Industrial zones, indicating eight trust offices have been activated, and the reshuffling of the Darkness Committee.
Concerning the Industrial Land Allocation stance, the Chairman of the Authority said 613 projects were allocated during 2022/2023 compared to 77 projects during the previous year with a growth of 696%, 936 plots were allocated during 2022, compared to 150 plots during 2021/2022, with a growth rate of 524%.
Commenting on this, the Prime Minister emphasized the need to periodically follow up on the position of each piece of land that is allocated until the factory is operational, preventing any attempt to ‘freeze’ these lands, noting that the state provides an unprecedented stimulus package, but at the same time aims to operate these factories, according to its plans in this sector.
It is clear that the expected return of all the projects that have been allocated for industrial land within a year is 47 thousand job opportunities and 41 billion pounds of investment costs, adding that the percentage of investors’ requests to issue new building permits was 91.4%, with a total of 373 permits out of a total of 408 applications.
The Chairman of the authority reviewed the amount of foreign investments collected in industrial areas from 12 countries, totaling 22 billion pounds in various industrial activities through 19 companies that provided 10 thousand jobs.
As shown by the position of the industrial complexes, it is clear that they have 17 complexes across the country with 5046 units, of which 2628 units across Egypt represent 52% of the total number of industrial units.
According to the update, it is clarified that in 2023, 3049 industrial units of these complexes were allocated, 120% more than the units allocated in 2022, reaching 1383 units.
The facilitation proposed for an industrial unit was reviewed, which included the reduction of the condition book price from 2500 EGP previously to 300 up to 500 EGP currently, the waiver of the standard costs of studying the allocation request, the seriousness of the unit reservation insurance, the waivers of the amounts deducted against the submission of offers, and the simplification of the administrative documents submitted with Requesting allocation, having the investor apply to request a unit himself and with his personal card without agents, increasing the number of banks willing to finance the acquisition of industrial units, making the SMDF easier the finance of getting machinery, equipment and production supplies, and working with electricity and water companies to reduce the value of the scale.
In a related context, it is clear that the authority provides financial support and technical supervision in the works of accompanying and raising the capacity of the infrastructure to industrial areas in different governorates in the amount of more than 5 billion pounds in the governorates of Bani Suif, Assiut, Dahliya, Minya, Qaliubiya, Luxor, Lake and Ismailia.
Digital transformation efforts and processes machinery, and the creation of a digital dashboard to manage and track all the board activities digitally, the board transformed its working systems from the paper system to the electronic system to help digitally call data and complete the development of the current database to leverage it in industry development.
