By Mohamed Ayyad and Moustafa Fahmy
Minister of Industry and Foreign Trade Mounir Fakhry Abdel Nour, said he is fully coordinating with the Ministry of Investment to allow extensive amendments to the trade law, especially articles organising market exit.
He said that the ease and speed of exiting markets is a fundamental factor that must be present in order for investments to be supplied and migratory capital localised. He explained that exit articles are currently under review, which will take the form of bankruptcy in mandatory situations and liquidation in optional ones.
Minister of Investment Ashraf Salman said that Egypt is suffering from difficulties in market exit, as bankruptcy and liquidation procedures are difficult and complex. He added that nearly thirty companies have been under liquidation for about 10 years now, which has led Egypt’s ranking in business reports to deteriorate.
Head of the Egyptian Businessmen’s Association Hussein Sabbour said that speeding up both processes of markets entry and exit, whether through liquidation or bankruptcy, is necessary to reassure local and foreign business communities.
Bureaucracy is the enemy of investment in Egypt, according to Sabbour. He said that tax breaks under the unified investment law encourage the initiation and acceleration of resolving disputes, but without one unified system for issuing licenses and granting lands, this will not prove feasible.
He added that the government needs to facilitate the work of the local and foreign private sector, especially after bureaucracy and legal disputes have left investors reluctant to invest.
