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Thousands of new projects open for investment in various sectors and regions across Egypt were highlighted at our business roundtable, titled A Glimpse into Egypt’s Emerging Investment Opportunities, held in the boardroom at the ABCC 13 June 2023.
A receptive audience of UK investors and business leaders heard a detailed presentation from keynote speaker, H E Mr Hossam Heiba, President of the General Authority for Investment & Free Zones, who explained how the country’s ambitious investment programme was transforming the economy, through enhanced regulations and incentives and building new infrastructure all of which were contributing to increasing the productivity of Egypt’s highly diversified economy and making it a more attractive proposition for foreign investors.
Welcomed by Mr Bandar Reda, ABCC Secretary General & CEO, H E Mr Heiba was joined by the Head of the Commercial Office of the Egyptian Embassy, Mr Tamar Mostafa Ali. H E Mr Manar Debbas, the Ambassador of the Kingdom of Jordan to the UK, joined the roundtable.
Mr Reda shared his impressions of visiting the country, remarking on the impressive developments taking place and new attractive investment opportunities.
Mr Abdeslam El Idrissi, ABCC Deputy CEO & Secretary General, chaired the discussion and described Egypt as a “land of opportunity” with huge potential for UK investors. He invited delegates to participate in the Chamber’s forthcoming Arab British Economic Summit (ABES2023) and hoped to see strong involvement from Egypt.
In the main presentation, H E Mr Hossam Heiba focused on the great strides that Egypt had made since the period of uncertainty and in the wake of global pandemic. The war in Europe had also had a regional impact in terms of a rise in inflation and food security although Egypt was showing economic resilience and ability to overcome turbulence.
Outlining Egypt’s strengths, Mr Heiba, stressed the diverse nature of the economy, its large market, still underutilised natural resources and its growing strategic role within the regional and global economy.
He stated that Egypt had embarked on an extensive reform programme in partnership with the World Bank and IMF and this was now bearing fruit.
Growth was particularly strong in certain key sectors, the official remarked.
Ambitious infrastructure upgrading was notable within the roads network and the plans to increase capacity of energy production and enhance food security.
Driven by its economic vision, Egypt had achieved noteworthy success with its renewables strategy by building the largest solar park in Africa. Green hydrogen projects were also part of the renewables plan, Mr Heiba told the delegates gathered at the roundtable.
New cities across the country had been opened along with new industrial parks and economic zones and all had been implemented since 2015.
The Egyptian government had taken many steps to improve the business regulations to make the market more attractive to investors through increased competitiveness, a range of incentives and greater fairness to encourage private sector growth.
Significant opportunities were available in areas such as textiles, automobile manufacturing, pharmaceuticals and healthcare, Mr Heiba explained, who provided data and details to support his observations.
He pointed to the potential for outsourcing of IT and data centres in Egypt as well as the growth in ports infrastructure and logistics.
IT was a growth area of the economy in Egypt which could now boast 60 thousand registered software developers.
Engineering and technology expertise were highly efficient and competitive industries, Mr Heiba said.
Mr Tamar Mostafa Ali, Head of the Commercial Office, Egyptian Embassy, reiterated the positive assessment of the economy and the many opportunities available for investment.
Mr Ali described the ABCC as offering a great platform for introducing investment opportunities to British businesses and looked forward to closer dialogue with UK investors.
The roundtable concluded with a series of questions from the audience which touched on various favourable measures introduced by Egypt to enhance its attractiveness. These included the golden license facility which had been expanded, the competitive labour costs, the steps taken to achieve food security and the country’s digital transformation which was moving forward at pace. The presentation proved to be highly effective in explaining many of the positive outstanding issues that investors would want to consider when contemplating making new investment in the country.