Trade Ministry holds first meeting to upgrade Export Support Programme

The Ministry of Trade and Industry hosted the first meeting to formulate new version of the Export Support Programme, with the participation of the heads of Export Councils.

The minister of trade and industry, the advisor for SMEs, and the general coordinator of the Export Councils, Hossam Farid, said that this meeting aims to prepare a new programme to stimulate Egyptian exports to foreign markets.

Farid noted that the meeting stressed the importance of focusing on deepening local components in the industry, increasing added value, developing small enterprises, encouraging access to new markets, increasing labour force rates and expanding the benefits of export incentives.

He revealed that the programme is to be announced by the end of February.

The meeting discussed the settlement of the amounts due to exporters, where a number of agreed proposals were presented by all industrial sectors subject to the Export Support Programme.

A number of export support programmes in a number of countries including South Africa, India, America, China, Brazil, Russia and Ukraine have also been presented during the meetings.

The number of beneficiaries is about 2,000 companies in seven sectors, including textile, agricultural crops, food industries, engineering, furniture, leather, and chemical industries.

The value of subsidised exports during the fiscal year (FY) 2017/18 reached about $5.8bn, and so far about EGP 2bn out of EGP 4bn have been allocated to the export support programme during the current FY.

Chemical and Fertilisers Export Council chairperson Khaled Abou El Makarem said that each council is due to submit its own proposals during upcoming meetings.The final plan will be presented within three weeks to the minister of trade and industry and then will be presented to the prime minister before the end of February.

Abou El Makarem added that the new programme of export subsidies, which will be called a new name, the export incentive programme, will be suspended in March this year, with the implementation of the new programme from first of March.

One of the most important proposals for the new regime, according Abou El Makarem, is that a large part of the support should be non-financial so as to not burden the state budget.