Foreign Direct Investment
The Suez Canal Economic Zone (SCZone) has signed a cooperation protocol with the Egyptian Commercial Representation Authority, aiming to strengthen collaboration and attract foreign direct investment to Egypt.
The FDI in Egypt accounted for 18.6% of Africa’s total investments, reaching $52.6 billion.
Hossam Heiba, CEO of the Egyptian General Authority for Investment and Free Zones (GAFI), announced the ambitious target, stating that FDI reached $6 billion in the first half of the previous fiscal year. He added that a recent deal in Ras El-Hekma is expected to further increase the final figure for 2023-2024.
Through analyzing the evolution of net foreign direct investments over the past nine years, excluding the COVID-19 period, foreign direct investments entering non-petroleum sectors reached a net flow of $11 billion.
The report also highlighted the FDI performance in previous quarters. In the second quarter (Q2) of FY2022/2023, FDI recorded $2.4 billion, while in the first quarter (Q1) of the same fiscal year, it amounted to $3.3 billion
The CBE detailed that net foreign direct investment from July 2022 to March 2023 amounted to approximately $7.945 billion, compared to about $7.348.5 billion in the corresponding period of the previous year, indicating an increase of $596.9 million.
The report states that the number of foreign direct investment (FDI) projects into Egypt increased by more than 150 percent to reach 148 projects in 2022, representing an estimated capital investment of $107 billion.
The minister, meanwhile, stressed that the Egyptian economy has shown strong performance, resilience and ability to absorb shocks.
Net foreign direct investment in Egypt recorded about $7.3 billion during the period from July 2021 until the end of March 2022, compared to $4.78 billion in the same period of the previous fiscal year.
Thus, net foreign direct investment in Egypt recorded the highest value since the first quarter of 2018, which amounted to $6.9 billion at the time.
Maait elaborated that this comes in a manner that ensures raising economic growth rates, creating more job opportunities, and enhancing aspects of spending on improving the standard of living of citizens and upgrading the services provided to them.
Egypt has remained as a top recipient of foreign direct investment in Africa for the fifth year in a row in 2020/2021, reaching $5.9 billion, which represents 53 percent of foreign direct investment directed to North Africa.
The foreign direct investments in Egypt were estimated at $5.9 billion in 2020, the UNCTAD said in its World Investment Report 2021 report on Monday.
A well-placed source at FRA said the approval came in line with the capital market law no 95 of 1992 and its executive statute.
The country accounted for 35.2 percent of the $340 billion invested in the region throughout the period.
Egypt is exerting efforts to create an investment-friendly climate and outline legislation in this regard, it added.
The World Investment Report 2019 included that foreign investment in Egypt was leaning towards the oil and gas industry, as Egypt's important discoveries of gas reserves abroad attracted investments from multinational companies.
Saudi Arabia’s direct investments in Egypt represent 8.4 percent of the total Arab countries’ investments in the first quarter of the current fiscal year.
Egypt ranked first in Africa in terms of foreign direct investment (FDI) flows, with the volume of investments hitting 7.4 billion dollars in 2017.
GAFI added that private investments hiked 47 percent, to reach LE 316 billion, compared to LE 213 billion during 2017.
