Ahmed Samir, Minister of Trade and Industry, held a meeting with Mohamed Abdel Wahab, Chairperson of the General Authority for Investment and Free Zones (GAFI), to discuss mechanisms of joint coordination to facilitate and simplify procedures for investors to obtain approvals, permits, and licences for investment projects.
The minister said that the coming period will witness adopting new measures to activate the decentralisation system in all agencies affiliated to the ministry, especially those concerned with dealing with investors for facilitating procedures, shortening time and lifting burdens on the business community.
He stressed the need to find more coordination and cooperation between the Industrial Development Authority (IDA) and GAFI in order to achieve compatibility between the two parties, which will reflect positively on services provided to investors.
Samir noted that the meeting dealt with challenges facing investors in the industrial sector and discussed ways to solve them at the Investor Service Center.
The Minister directed the IDA to provide GAFI with a guide to granting licenses so that it can be circulated to all investor service centers, as well as increasing technical cadres in the Investor Service Center with the redistribution of these cadres according to needs and requirements of development and expansion plans in industrial cities. Furthermore, providing service of issuing registration cards in production requirements register through employees of the General Authority for Export and Import Control existed at the headquarters of the Investor Service Center at GAFI.
For his part, Abdel Wahab explained that GAFI provides all services to investors in the industrial sector through the Investor Service Center located in 15 governorates, which include representatives of all government agencies concerned with industrial investment to facilitate investor access on necessary approvals for the establishment and operation of companies.
Mohamed Al-Zalat, head of the IDA, stated that there is complete cooperation and coordination between the IDA and GAFI to provide all services of the IDA through GAFI offices nationwide.
