Egypt's economic conference lures huge foreign investments

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (Xinhua) - The reassurance, facilitation and commitment offered by the Egyptian government in the ongoing three-day Egypt Economic Development Conference (EEDC)  lured foreign investors to sign agreements worth tens of billions of dollars in the North African Arab country.

On Saturday, the second day of the EEDC that is held in the Red Sea resort city of Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt signed a $45-billion agreement with an Emirati corporation to establish a new administrative capital city to replace the overcrowded Cairo.

Germany's Siemens signed four memos of understanding with Egypt to establish power stations worth $10 billion and the leading British Petroleum (BP) inked a $9-billion energy deal with the country.

"This sends a reassurance message to investors that international leading corporations seek to invest billions of dollars in the energy industry in Egypt," Egyptian Oil Minister Sherif Ismail told Xinhua.

The minister added that it's among the huge foreign investments flooding to the country and that the products of the projects, about five trillion cubic feet of gas resources and 55 million barrels of condensates, will be dedicated for the domestic market.

To reassure investors, Egypt has completed a long-awaited unified investment law that initiated a "one-stop window" system at the Investment Authority to facilitate business establishment without investors having to visit several ministries for approvals and procedures.

During the EEDC opening session on Friday, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said that Egypt is working hard on improving investment environment through a package of important legislative and institutional reforms.

"This included wording the Unified Investment Law, activating the one-stop-window system, developing the investment service system... and also providing opportunity to settle many investment disputes in a friendly way and stressing the Egyptian government's commitment to pay off the dues of foreign companies," said the Egyptian president.

Around 90 countries, some of them represented by heads of states, and 25 organizations and international institutions take part in the Egyptian big event that was also attended by world top economists and diplomats.

Ehab al-Desouki, head of the Economy Department of Cairo-based Sadat Academy, told Xinhua that the high turnout in the conference reflects Egypt's significance for the world and confidence in the future of the Egyptian economy.

"This sets Egypt as a core of regional and international economic cooperation, which encourages donor states and investors to confidently invest in the country," the expert said.

He noted that the positive remarks of the chief of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Christine Lagarde during the opening session, where she reassured that Egypt's "journey to higher growth is already underway," was like a green light for world investors.

Desouki, however, said that this conference is "a big responsibility and pressure" for the Egyptian government that has to be committed to the investment facilitation it offered or else it will lose credibility.

The EEDC garnered a lot of world investors who seek to expand their business in the country due to the offered reassurances and the world institutions' recent testimonies in favor of the Egyptian economic reforms.

"Just recently, last year, DHL completed about $65.5 billion investment in Cairo Airport. We've started to fly one of our planes into Cairo on a weekly basis, and we hope to make that on a daily basis around the Middle East, and we hope to bring a plane from Europe to Cairo as well," Ken Allen,  CEO of DHL Express, told Xinhua.

The DHL chief said that in order to make Egypt a hub for DHL to North Africa, "we need the support of the government, but you know we need 24-hour customs clearance and we need abundant facilities in the airport."

Allen, who was one of the EEDC speakers on Saturday, sees that DHL has a lot of opportunities in Egypt and that the Egyptian government is working hard to facilitate businesses for international investors.

Egyptian economic experts and businessmen see that the $12.5-billion aids and investments offered by the Gulf states of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Oman reflected confidence in Egypt's economic future, yet they said that these aids would not last forever and Egypt needs to count on its own sustainable development after the current critical time is over.

"It is time to depend on ourselves and the real solution is to bring to Egypt about $15-billion investments per year, and if more, it will solve a lot of problems," said Egyptian business tycoon Naguib Sawiris.

Sawiris, ex-shareholder of Mobinil mobile service provider in Egypt, told Xinhua that he intends to pump billions of dollars in investment in Egypt in new sectors including logistics, land and river transport, seaport services, all kinds of energy projects and agricultural projects, etc.

"We sold our remaining share in Mobinil now and we got about $2.5 billion, and all of it will be invested inside Egypt, not elsewhere," the Egyptian billionaire told Xinhua.