Cairo - Hana Mohamed
Egyptian parliamentarian Mohamed Badrawy Awad said that the Egyptian industry faces serious challenges during the current period, praising the call adopted by Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi for raising the slogan “Made in Egypt” again to restore the industrial sector in Egypt. He stressed the need for developing the vital sector during the coming period to attract more investments and to create job opportunities.
He called the Egyptian authorities for taking serious measures to resolve the problems of the suspended factories as soon as possible, saying that if the government managed to operate these factories, they would perform a major role to improve Egypt’s economy. He praised the investment law, saying that it managed to resolve over 85 percent of the investment problems in the country.
He confirmed the importance of cooperation between sectors, by holding a lot of meetings between industrial chambers, and the ministry of Military Production to come up with products that will satisfy the customers.
He added that, re-running suspended factories and small workshops will be a great help in developing the industrial sector, establishing a high value and increasing exports’ rate. He said that the division is working to increase the local material in industries especially in cars, to reduce the dollar consumption, and there has been a great cooperation to achieve this idea.
He said that, the decision to increase fees on scrap paper and aluminum scrap is late but good in order to preserve the raw materials and use them in local industries instead of importing them, adding that this increase in fees came on requests from industrial chambers, but it was recently approved. He added that, the decision didn’t indicate how long this increase will last or what is its impact, stressing that, the smuggling operations of these scraps need to be stopped.
He stressed that the Industry Committee has held several meetings to prioritize the work in the next phase, stressing that they work to resolve the problems of suspended factories during the coming period and to ease the repercussions of the decision to liberate the exchange rate of the Egyptian currency on the Egyptian workers.
He praised the initiative adopted by President Sisi to allocate 200 billion EGP to finance small and medium projects, saying that the banks have not provided more than one billion EGP. He stressed the need for providing the money to ease the challenges facing the young Egyptians during the coming period.
He added that the country has not benefited from the agricultural crops that are exported as raw material, stressing that if the government turned to manufacturer them, it would achieve increasing gains. He revealed they plan to establish industrial communities near the agricultural areas to manufacture the agricultural crops.