The Egyptian government has assured Chinese entrepreneurs and other prospective investors of a safe and conducive business environment in the country as part of the process to increase and sustain investor’s confidence after the revolution that marred business activities in the North African powerhouse.
Egypt’s Minister of Investment Osama Saleh gave this assurance at the ongoing “Egypt China Economic and Business Forum” in Beijing, which has in attendance about 80 Egyptian entrepreneurs and representatives from 200 Chinese enterprises.
The Egyptian delegations consist of diverse representation covering all the vital economic sectors including infrastructure, construction, tourism, petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals and textiles.
This is the first time such a huge business mission has come to China from Egypt, Hassan Malek, one of the Egyptian business delegation said. The two-day forum which will end today (Wednesday) is part of the Egyptian government plan to restructure the economy of the country after the revolution which oust Hosni Mubarak 30 years regime to give way to a civilian government.
The revolution caused a dent in the Egyptian economy as there were suspensions of a number of investment projects, including investments by Chinese enterprises.
To prevent such mishap in the future, Saleh said Egypt’s Ministry of Investment has set up a team to help investors ensure that no interruptions affect their business operations. He said agreements are now made with investors on investment protection and that such agreement will be respected by any government who comes to power.
“We worked together with the Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Labor to work 24 hours for all the investors, and we also worked with ambassadors in different countries,” Saleh said.
With more than 1,100 Chinese enterprises investment in Egypt and a bilateral trade volume of $8.8 billion in 2011, China now rank 25th in terms of Egypt’s sources of foreign investment.
Meanwhile, Egypt has set an ambitious target to triple Chinese investment fourfold within the next three years.
