The industrial sector, both locally and globally, faced enormous challenges during the past three years, exacerbated by the Russian-Ukrainian war, which caused high inflation rates, an increase in energy prices, disruption of supply chains and difficulty in obtaining production inputs.

The Egyptian government has taken a package of initiatives, national strategies, and investment incentives to develop and support this sector, work to localize the Egyptian industry, support industrial project and achieve social development for the citizen.

Despite these efforts, capabilities and enormous wealth that Egypt enjoys, the industrial sector still faces some challenges that limit its launch and obtaining the position it deserves.

In this context, Canada Egypt Business Council and the Egyptian Business Council for International Cooperation held a seminar entitled “The Development of the Egyptian Industry …. Opportunities and Challenges” featuring H.E. Eng. Ahmed Samir; Minister of Commerce and Industry.

In his opening remarks, Mr. Motaz Raslan; chairman of CEBC and ECIC mentioned that the industry file is receiving great attention these days amid increasing awareness of its importance to the national economy and that it is the engine of real development. He pointed out that many governments have raised the slogan of promoting national industry for many years, but the goal has not been achieved despite the presence of many plans and strategies.

The key factors that hindered the development of the industry were bureaucracy, the multiplicity of tax and customs procedures and restrictions, the absence of competition, the shortage of skilled workers, the lack of databases and marketing plans, in addition to the crises of the dollar shortage and other problems and challenges, which presented many obstacles to the launch of the Egyptian Industry.

Mr. Raslan concluded his speech by saying: “Our dream of achieving an industrial renaissance, raising the Made in Egypt slogan, and gaining the trust of the local consumer will only be achieved through work and planning. “And make industry the focus of building Egypt’s future,” noting that there is great interest from the state in pushing and supporting this file, the most important of which is President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi’s directives two weeks ago to the government to launch a new package of incentives that support industrial activity and accelerate the process of localization of industry, which includes tax exemptions and a refund of a percentage of profits. The value of the allocated lands, and the expansion of the granting of the golden license… in order to accelerate the implementation of industrial projects and end the sector’s problems, and they also came at a difficult time when the global economy is suffering from major challenges.

H.E. Eng. Ahmed Samir; Minister of Commerce and Industry commenced his speech stressing that the state currently provides large incentive packages to support strategic investment projects, including exemption from taxes for a period of 5 years, which can be increased to 10 years, and a refund of 50% of the value of the industrial land within 18 months from the start of project implementation, with the possibility of making it available free of charge to strategic industries, in addition to benefiting from the golden license. Pointing out the implementation of serious plans to increase the growth rates of the industrial sector to increase its contribution to the gross domestic product from 11% to 20% annually, which will contribute to providing 200,000 job opportunities annually, as the industrial sector contributed 11.2% to the Egyptian economy during 2021.

The minister highlighted that the national strategy for industry is currently being developed in cooperation with various ministries and agencies, aiming to deal with various global challenges and achieve a high industrial growth rate, increase the industry’s contribution to the gross domestic product, increase the growth of Egyptian exports, and work to facilitate investment procedures, make more industrial lands available to investors, and provide new markets. for Egyptian exports, facilitating access to financing projects, and providing skilled labor for projects to contribute to increasing the competitiveness of the Egyptian product and thus increasing exports.

The minister added that the ministry has set 152 investment opportunities that include 483 customs items to start manufacturing locally with the aim of increasing the competitiveness of the industrial sector and providing production inputs for a large number of industries, where the global promotion of these opportunities is currently being promoted through commercial offices, the investment authority and the economic zone of the Suez Canal, and the study of ways to implement them within the framework of The integrative industrial partnership between Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Bahrain, where a draft law is being prepared for these industries to be presented to the Parliament during the next session, explaining that 7200 industrial licenses have been issued and 4.7 million meters of industrial lands were available, which represents an increase of 530%.

He concluded his speech emphasizing that the industrial sector is being strengthened and the sector is able to face global shocks and crises by deepening the national industry, increasing reliance on local production inputs, and increasing the competitiveness of the Egyptian product in global markets.

Then the floor was opened for questions and answers where many inquiries and ideas were discussed by the participants of the seminar.