Egypt's new investment law and regulations are positive and can attract more Indian investments in the country, especially in the pharmaceutical sector, India's Ambassador to Egypt has said.
Egypt, the largest economy in Africa, passed a new investment law in May, which aims at lessening the bureaucratic burden on companies.
"The Indian investors normally look at the environment where they are investing, they revise the regulations and whether they are going to create a good environment for investments and also looking for transparent policies.
They also look if they are treated like the local investors or different," Sanjay Bhattacharyya told PTI.
"I think the new investment regulations which were issued recently are very positive and it will attract more investors," he said.
India-Egypt trade and investment made a significant headway in the last few years, despite the weakening of the global economy and declining trade.
The bilateral trade grew 60 per cent over the last five years touching almost USD 5 billion. India is Egypt's third largest destination of exports. Over 50 Indian companies have invested USD 3 billion in Egypt and have provided employment to 35,000 Egyptians.
"Lots of Indian investments, especially in the field of pharmaceutical industries are interested in working in the Egyptian market... If you look at India, considered one the largest recipient of world investments with USD 38 billion, similarly there a lot of Indian investment that goes overseas which reaches around USD 38 billion," Bhattacharyya added.
He also said that the economic relation between the two countries is currently going up with plans of enhancing current or launching new projects.
"In connection with the field of capacity building, we are cooperating with the concerned organisations in Egypt in order to develop capacity through sharing our experience in the field of SME's through training in different aspects of ITEC program related to SME's industries," he explained.
He also said that there were three Egyptian teams who went to India from banking sector and Federation of the Egyptian Industries in the past period.
"The first delegation went this year to India to get acquainted and benefits from the Indian experiment in the field of SME's and the Indian CII (The Chamber of Indian Industries) has organised series of meetings for the members of the Egyptian visiting delegation with Indian Experts in the field of SME's."
"The delegtaion also met with the policy makers and discussed the how the micro and Medium Enterprises are financed the Indian experience in this field."
"At the same time, the important institutions shared their plans and offered them mixed kind of modalities in various fields like how to build skills schools and hospitals," Bhattacharyya said.
The interactions of the Egyptian delegations revolved around the ways of financing these enterprises along with the right technology and availability of right market locally or internationally.
Last October, during 3rd India-Africa Forum Summit, which took place in India, the Indian government had earmarked USD 10 million credit with lenient interest and grants for a long time.
"Many African nations had benefited from this credit, but we did not received any request from any of the Egyptian organisations," he said.
At the same time, the Indian governmentis establishing a centre for excellence in technology at Al-Azhar University, most prestigious establishment in Arab and Islamic world, to train 500 persons annually.
The Indian side will provide hardware, software and experts for the project, he added.
"Following the President Sisi's visit to India, we received around half a dozen of Indian investors who are interested in investing here in Egypt. When the investors come to any country they create job opportunities and introduce modern technology," he said.
Disclaimer: No Business Standard Journalist was involved in creation of this content
