Investment Climate in Egypt

The receptive investment climate in Egypt has been positively acclaimed by many international agencies. Most recent of which have been the UNCTAD which lauded the political and economic stability of the country in its “World Investment Report 2007” launched last October. The report highlights Egypt’s liberal policies which enabled it to become the leading African country in attracting FDIs in 2006 garnering a record $ 10 billion in various fields of industry and services, most notably of which was telecommunications.

The Government of Egypt approves a number of policies and programs that enhance the performance of the national economy with regards to investment, funding and operations, in a way that boosts economic growth and provide more job opportunities.

The Government policies include:

-  The provision of an enabling investment environment by means of facilitating investment procedures

-  Supporting investors

-  Adoption of incentive investment programs in all governorates of Egypt

-  Expansion of the private sector participation in the investment process and the restructuring of the state-owned companies

-  Provision of an appropriate investment legislative infrastructure.

The Government of Egypt has started to apply these programs, which in turn enabled the government to activate and develop the infrastructure of the Egyptian economy, leading eventually to pushing Egypt to the forefront of the countries that perform economic reforms. The annual report recently issued by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) on business reforms in the world (Doing Business 2008) also places Egypt as the top ranking country regarding economic and legislative reforms undertaken in the period from April 2006 to June 2007 to facilitate the liberalization of investments. According to the report, Egypt displayed the single fastest climb in the overall rankings on the ease of doing business from 2006 to 2007