Be patient says GAFI – success is coming

Transforming Egypt’s business climate will not happen overnight, Engineer Amr Abdel Azim, vice chairman of the General Authority for Investment and Free Zones, told business leaders in Cairo last night.

Success will require a combination of patience, on the one hand, and a sense of urgency, on the other. Azim was speaking at the closure of Egypt Invest 2005, the conference attended by more than 1,000 business people from 40 countries in Cairo this week.

Azim said there was a sense of urgency, to drive committed action on multiple fronts and overcome obstacles. It needed patience, “because we know that nothing of real value comes quickly or easily,” he said.

“We are all impatient for results.  But if we are not realistic about the time required to transform an economy, we risk abandoning the effort before it has a chance to succeed. 

“Businesses do not invest hundreds of millions without studying the prospects for earning a return in a reasonable period of time.  This often takes a year or more.

“Once a company decides to invest in a foreign market, another year or more is required before a plant is built and goes into operation.

“Only a year has passed since we began our reforms. We are still early in the process of transforming our economy and promoting Egypt to business investors,” he said.

Promises of economic reform were met with skepticism in many quarters.  “Some of you are probably saying to yourself, ‘We’ve heard this before.’

“I want to answer you today with two sets of facts.

First, there are clear signs of progress our reforms are starting to show:

• Total foreign investment increased to $4.7 billion last year from $1.8 billion the previous year.

• Non-petroleum investments jumped four-fold in the past year, from $407 million to $1.3 billion.

• Issued capital from foreign sources increased by 2.4 billion Egyptian pounds over the past two years.”

But, Azim said, issued capital from Egyptian sources increased even faster, by 7.5 billion Egyptian pounds. As a result, Egyptian sources dominate foreign sources by more than 4 to 1. Foreign Issued Capital - between July 1st to September 30th 2005 – increased by 76% over the same period in 2004.

“These statistics mean we are making good progress.  But put in perspective, they also say we have a long way to go to achieve our goal of expanding economic opportunity for the people of Egypt.

We’ve made a good start, but it is only a start,” he concluded to a standing ovation from the assembled audience\of business leaders.