Trade and Industry Minister Rachid Mohamed Rachid on Tuesday announced that the government was in the process of devising a new system for the allocation of state-owned land to investment projects in the industrial, commercial, agricultural and housing sectors.
The minister also called for the establishment of a single state body responsible for all land allocations in order to expedite investment procedures.
“Having to deal with a number of different bureaucratic government bodies serves to discourage multinational investment companies,” Rachid said. “Several private-sector projects have been held up due to conflicting and ambiguous legislation regarding land allocation."
The minister went on to point out that Egypt over the past six years had become an attractive venue for foreign investment. “We still, however, must work to make investment procedures easier and faster,” he noted.
Egypt's Council of Ministers, meanwhile, predicted that the national economic growth rate would reach 6 percent by the end of the current fiscal year, compared to a 5.2-percent growth rate in 2009/10. The council also predicts that Egypt's budget deficit will fall to less than 8 percent within the same period.
Economy experts, for their part, say that state-funded public works–such as roads, railways and seaports–had failed to keep pace with Egypt's booming population, which currently stands at some 78 million.
Translated from the Arabic Edition.
