Egypt seeks to double exports to Africa to $10 Bln by 2025

CAIRO – 10 March 2022: Egypt has set an integrated plan to double exports to African continent by the year 2025, in light of the directives of President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi that were revealed in a memorandum submitted by the government to the Parliament.

A memorandum was submitted by the Ministry of Planning led by Dr. Hala Al-Saeed to the African Affairs Committee in the House of Representatives headed by Representative Sherif El-Gabaly, refers to the measures taken to implement the directives of the political leadership to expand exports to the African continent.

The memo is based on the Prime Minister’s Decision No. 263 of 2021 to form a committee to prepare a strategic plan for the development of Egyptian exports to the African continent by 2025, and the Ministry of Planning and Economic Development, in cooperation with ministries and concerned agencies.

During the attendance of the Minister of Planning, Dr. Hala Al-Saeed, the committee’s meeting this week, she indicated that the most prominent goals of the strategy are to double Egyptian exports to the African continent, to reach 10 billion dollars by 2025.

The government memorandum sheds light on the stages of implementing the plan, starting from the current year 2022 until 2025, as 10 African countries are targeted during the period (January 2022 - December 2022), and eight countries during the period (January 2023 - June 2024), and then (from 7 to 12 countries during the period (July 2024 - December 2025).

The memorandum enumerated the objectives of the executive plan within the framework of the state’s strategy to move towards Africa, foremost among which is maintaining Egypt’s share in the current export markets, developing new export markets to support production and employment, doubling Egyptian exports to Africa by 2025, supporting the small and medium industries sector, and promoting Egyptian investments in sectors.

The memorandum ensured that Africa is considered one of the most important markets for Egyptian exports, as Cairo is linked with a large number of African countries through free trade agreements that allow Egyptian exports to enjoy many advantages within African markets,; however, the volume of trade between Egypt and Africa is very small compared to the opportunities available on the continent.

The volume of Egyptian exports to Africa is estimated at about $3.8 billion (2020 statistics), and rose by the end of 2021 to become the equivalent of $5 billion.

The memorandum indicates that about 69 percent of Egypt's exports to Africa are concentrated in the Arab African countries, and therefore Egypt's exports to sub-Saharan African countries (non-Arabs) amount to only about 30 percent of Egypt's total exports to Africa and are concentrated in Kenya, Uganda and South Africa.

On the investment side, the memorandum clarifies that since the African countries are investment recipient countries, there are no large African investments in Egypt, but the administration is coordinating the establishment of Egyptian projects in countries of strategic importance to Egypt in the African continent.

According to the statistics of 2019, Egyptian investments in the African continent amounted to about 11.3 billion US dollars.

The important sectors in which Egyptian companies invest in the continent’s markets include: (building materials sector - information and communication technology sector - engineering goods - medicine - chemical and plastic products - real estate sector ) concentrated in countries such as (Ethiopia - Kenya - Zambia - Uganda - Tanzania - Nigeria – Rwanda).

Egypt ranked first among the list of African countries attracting foreign investments, which were estimated at about 6.8 billion US dollars in 2018 (UNCTAD statistics), while South Africa ranked second with investments estimated at 6.3 billion dollars for 2018.