Egypt’s non-oil imports decline 24% in 4 months due to coronavirus

CAIRO – 23 June 2020: Egypt’s non-oil imports decreased 24 percent during the first four years of 2020, recording $18.797 billion, compared to $ 24.58 billion during the same period of 2019, due to coronavirus, according to Minister of Trade Nevein Gameaa.

Gamea added Monday that Egypt's trade balance deficit decreased 35 percent by $5.57 billion, during January -April period, which confirms the success of the ministry's plan to increase dependence on the national product and replace imports with homemade products.

This came in the framework of the Minister's participation - via the video conference - in the activities of the annual investment forum held in the United Arab Emirates, with the participation of Soraya Hakuziyaremye,, Rwandan Minister of Trade and Industry and Alan Wolff, Deputy Director General of the World Trade Organization.

The Minister stressed the importance of achieving a flexible global economic system that allows countries to strike a balance between benefiting from economic globalization and self-sufficiency in local production, after the outbreak of the emerging Corona virus.

She pointed out that the coronavirus crisis contributed to the development of new directions for solidarity and global cooperation between countries and individuals to confront the common threat, and also opened a window of hope for establishing a new infrastructure capable of effectively dealing with similar disasters and taking new measures in the pursuit of social justice.

She said that the crisis of the new coronavirus is unprecedented, and the whole world shares the broad outlines of its economic and social repercussions.

“This crisis represents a great opportunity for Egyptian manufacturers to rely on national industries and replace them with imports, especially as the ministry is currently coordinating with the industry community to encourage them to manufacture inputs and production requirements locally to meet the needs of the national industry by networking national manufacturing chains and deepening local manufacturing and achieving integration between the government and the private sector,” the minister noted.

Gamea stated that the government is keen on continuing the wheel of production and reducing the impact of levels of internal supply and demand and maintaining the pace of work in the Egyptian industry and at the same time protecting labor from infection with the virus where no violent measures were taken to confront the crisis compared to many countries where a partial curfew was imposed and an exception was made Industrial activities.

She pointed out that the government had taken a number of decisions that greatly served the industry and export sector, which included unifying and reducing the price of natural gas for industry to $4.5 per million thermal units, and issuing a decision to reduce the prices of selling electric energy supplied to industrial activities on the high, medium an