Egypt has entered negotiations with the United States and Israel to amend the Qualified Industrial Zones (QIZ) trade agreement, said Minister of Industry and Foreign Trade Hatem Saleh on Monday.
“Egypt considers the QIZ a trade agreement, not a political deal,” Saleh said. “And we seek to achieve greater economic return from it.”
The three nations entered into the QIZ agreement in December 2004. The deal exempts Egyptian exports to the United States from the quota system that the US applies to all other countries, provided the Egyptian exports contained an Israeli component of 11.7 percent, an amount that was reduced to 10.5 in 2007.
Egypt now seeks to further reduce that amount to 8 percent.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
