By: Ahmad Abu el-Hamd
Tuesday 14 March 2017
The Minister of Investment and International Cooperation Dr. Sahar Nasr held a workshop with the World Bank (WB) mission to discuss the steps taken by Egypt with regard to the Doing Business report, in presence of representatives from the Ministries of Finance, Electricity, Justice, Housing, Transport, and Trade & Industry as well as the Egyptian Financial Supervisory Authority (EFSA) and the Egyptian Customs Authority.
The meeting discussed the steps taken and those to be taken by each ministry until May 2017 in the fields building on which Egypt will be ranked, including the commencement of business activities, obtaining construction permits, getting access to electricity, property registration, obtaining access to credits, protection of investors, tax payment, cross-border trade, enforcement of contracts and regulation of the labour market.
The Minister laid emphasis on communicating with various international agencies experienced in improving the investment climate, noting that the aim of the workshop was to present the WB’s best practices in the doing business field in order to be applied in Egypt based on the best quality.
The WB mission commended the economic procedures taken by the government during the previous period, which would contribute to improving Egypt’s ranking in the Doing Business report. The mission indicated that their role was to present the best international practices in the business activity so that the Egyptian government can select the adequate practice according to its programme, while asserting its confidence in the Egyptian economy’s ability and emphasizing its willingness to proceed towards improving Egypt’s ranking in the said report.
Further, the mission stated that another mission would visit Egypt in April to make sure of the reforms carried out by the Egyptian government to improve Egypt’s investment climate. Dr. Nasr, accordingly, ascertained that coordination was underway among all ministries to contribute to improving such climate.
The Ministry of Electricity’s representative, on one hand, gave an overview of the reform procedures taken in the electricity field, including reducing the length of the period necessary for obtaining access to electricity from 34 to 18 days, while noting that a new mechanism was developed to assess power cuts.
On the other hand, the Ministry of Transport’s representative mentioned that the Ministry worked on the application of the ports mechanization system and electronic linkage, within the framework of the seaports development. Moreover, EFSA’s representative pointed out that the Companies Law and the labour market regulations were being amended concurrently with the issuance of the Transferred Guarantees Law and relevant executive regulations.
In addition, The Ministry of Finance’s representative briefed the participants on the procedures taken with regard to the mechanization of tax payment and the representative of the Ministry of Trade & Industry presented the procedures taken regarding the mechanization of the electronically required documents in the Import and Export Law.
Finally, the Ministry of Housing’s representative referred to the adoption of the single-window system to facilitate the procedures necessary for obtaining construction permits for the new urban communities. The representative of the Ministry of Justice also explained that they were working on a programme for providing an electronic access to information.
All participants agreed on an implementation timetable for the agreed upon steps regarding the Doing Business report.
