Annual conference of the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs “The repercussions of the war in Ukraine on the situation in the Middle East and Egypt”
February 11, 2023Roundtable between ECFA and the Embassy of Uzbekistan in Cairo on “Egypt and Uzbekistan… Joint Cooperation Prospects “
February 18, 2023
On February 27, 2023, ECFA organized a meeting, in which it hosted Consulting Engineer/ Yehya Zaki, former Chairman of the General Authority of the Suez Canal Economic Zone (August 2019 – August 2022), to talk about the topic “The Suez Canal Economic Zone: Opportunities and Challenges.” The meeting was opened by Ambassador Mohamed Al-Orabi, ECFA Chairman, and attended by Ambassadors Ezzat Saad, ECFA Director, Farouk Mabrouk, Mohamed Al-Ashmawy, Abdel Moneim Omar, and Dr. Kamal Abu Aqeel.
The guest briefed the participants on the history of the establishment of the Suez Canal Economic Zone, which dates back to the era of the late Prime Minister Kamal El-Ganzouri, following his visit, along with a number of Egyptian businessmen and investors, to a Chinese city at the beginning of this century, which has a huge industrial zone which helped attract investors to it, and greatly contributed to supporting the advancement of the Chinese economy. In this context, the Economic Zones Law was issued in Egypt (No. 83 of 2002), which is considered the best economic zones law in the Arab Republic of Egypt. The political leadership worked to maximize the importance and investment in the Suez Canal region in 2014, after the state of turmoil that the country witnessed between 2011 and 2013. A study was prepared on the Suez Canal Economic Zone and was completed before the summer of 2015, which resulted in the amendment of the aforementioned law and the issuance of Law No. 71 of 2015, for which an executive regulation was issued regulating its implementation and application.
The guest added that the capabilities, capacities, infrastructure, and network of facilities that the Suez Canal Economic Zone currently enjoys qualify it to attract additional diverse investments, as well as the integration of industrial zones with the sea ports included in the economic zone, which has contributed to facilitating trade internally and externally. In this context, he called for the need to resolve legislative and executive clashes between the institutions concerned so as to achieve the highest possible efficiency and benefit by the Economic zone to the Egyptian economy.
