Sisi directs completing Egypt's 1st sovereign fund

CAIRO - 12 November 2018: President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi directed officials to complete all steps required to form the first Egyptian sovereign fund according to the latest standards applied to establish similar sovereign funds worldwide.

The establishment of the fund on international standards aims at achieving good management of state assets, in light of the government's plan to achieve sustainable development goals within the framework of Egypt's Vision 2030, Presidential Spokesman Bassam Radi said.

This came during the president's meeting with Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouli and Minister of Planning Hala El-Saeed.

The Egyptian Parliament passed in July a law approving the fund with authorized capital of LE200 billion ($11.2 billion). The fund will start with paid-in capital of LE5 billion, 20 percent of which will be injected by the government when it is set up.

The fund is established to support sustainable development through management of its funds and assets, MENA added. The establishment of the fund will be completed by the end of this year, said the Planning Minister.

In an interview with Bloomberg, al-Saeed said that Egypt’s new investment vessel, to be modeled after sovereign funds in India and Malaysia, will seek to make the best of underutilized state assets rather than investing surplus oil and gas revenues as Gulf countries do.