Supervisor Elham AbolFateh
Editor in Chief Mohamed Wadie

2018: Immigration Ministry’s Year of Achievements


Sun 30 Dec 2018 | 05:48 PM
Gehan Aboella

By: Gehan Abo ElElla, Nawal ElSayed

CAIRO, Dec. 30 (SEE) - Ministry of Immigration and Egyptian Expatriates is concerned with caring about citizens living abroad in cooperation and coordination with other ministries, agencies and organizations. It’s the official gateway to communicate with the Egyptian expats.

The ministry was founded in response to several calls made by expats who sought to play a role in building their homeland and support national issues. Moreover, they sought to contribute to improving various fields based on experiences they gained in resident countries. Political, social and economic issues are among of their interests.

Migration Ministry’s Achievements in 2018

Early 2018, the ministry exerted sincere efforts to encourage expats to take part in the presidential elections. Nabila Makram, the minister, paid dozens of visits to foreign countries and met with the communities’ heads overseas. In addition, she instructed to establish an operation room during the voting days so as to monitor the process and easily communicate with voters.

In coordination with the National Election Authority, the ministry helped the expatriates recognize their voting stations and solved many problems that they faced during voting.

The ministry worked with the Interior Ministry in order to enable the expats to issue new national IDs so that they could participate in the presidential elections abroad.

In Australia, she opened the parliamentary friendship association called “Egyptian-Australian”.

The minister of Immigration travelled to Italy to discuss with the Italian side the implementation of the joint agreement between the two countries for the exchange of driving licenses and the equivalent of the Egyptian license in Italy.

Makram announced in Feb. that President Abdel Fattah El Sisi agreed to sponsor the 'Egypt Can..By Sons of the Nile”, in Luxor. She stressed the president was keen on sponsoring the previous two sessions of the national conference of scientists and experts abroad.

The conference grouped a number of Egyptian scientists and experts who made great achievements in the fields of agriculture, irrigation and water resources. It was one of the strategic axes of the ministry to connect Egyptian expatriates with their homeland.

The first session was held in December 2016 under the title 'Egypt Can..with its scientists', while the second was in July 2017, titled 'Egypt can.. with Females'.

These conferences were held in conformity with directives of the president to connect leading expat Egyptian scientists with the homeland to make use of their expertise in resolving problems and promoting the lives of the people in all fields based on the 2030 sustainable development strategy targets.

Under the rubric “Speak Egyptian”, Makram launched an initiative to encourage Egyptian children and adults living abroad to learn their homeland’s language. “Speak Egyptian” reflects the orientation of the state towards deepening the Egyptian identity in their expats abroad.

In light of the social responsibility of the ministry of Immigration and the implementation of the directives of the political leadership to support the most needy groups, several campaigns were launched to collect material and in-kind donations for the Aboul Rish Children's Hospital, Bahia Hospital for early detection and treatment of women's cancer free of charge.

Under the directives of President Sisi to the government to preserve the rights of seasonal and irregular labor, the ministry of Immigration issued a certificate of "Aman" for expatriate Egyptian workers abroad, as put in to provide insurance coverage in cases of natural or accidental death.

In late April 2018, the first initiative of its kind in the world entitled "Reviving the Roots" was launched under the patronage and presence of Sisi, which aimed to celebrate the people of foreign communities who lived in Egypt and visit places that bear the memories of those communities such as places of origin, schools and others.

2018’s version was specific to the Greek and Cypriot communities and it had very positive repercussions at the level of the three countries.

In late September 2018, the ministry launched a celebration of Egyptians of Armenian origin who have been living in Egypt for a long time. They are an integral part of the Egyptian national fabric and have played an important role in the history of Egypt.

The Kuwaiti Criminal Court sentenced the Kuwaiti citizen, accused of assaulting Egyptian citizen Waheed Rifai, with 17 years in prison. This came in the wake of the continuous efforts of the Minister of Immigration to follow up the case and visit to Kuwait to check on Egyptian citizen Rifai, at the hospital where he was treated.

Within the framework of the plan of the Ministry of Immigration to link the second, third and fourth generations of Egyptians residing abroad, the Ministry organized several visits to those residing in the United States, Canada and Australia to Egypt.

The program included visits several places of tourism and history and attending courses on the national security in cooperation with the Nasser Military Academy Supreme, to correct the misconceptions they have.

The ministry organized the first forum for Egyptians abroad under the slogan "In your vacation, we will see and hear you".

To increase the interaction and coordination with the Egyptian entities abroad, the initiative "Register your entity abroad … and prepare for your conference inside" was launched. The initiative aimed to communicate directly with these entities, cooperate with them and listen to their ideas and proposals to serve the overall development plan for Egypt 2030.

In light of the activation of information and communication technology to serve the expats, Makram discussed with the Minister of Communications d. Amr Talat How to make it easier for residents abroad to make cash transfers easily and easily through the network of Egyptian postal service centers spread throughout Egypt.

The two ministers agreed to start a local and international promotional campaign in the places where the Egyptians are abroad to introduce the Egyptian mail services and facilities, mainly cash transfers.

The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) announced that the total remittances of Egyptians working abroad during the first quarter of the current fiscal year 2018-2019 rose by 1.5% to reach 5.9 billion dollars against about 5.8 billion dollars during the same period of the previous fiscal year.

The Central Bank of Egypt pointed out that the total remittances of Egyptians working abroad registered a rise of about 298 million dollars in the month of September 2018, up by 20.4% to reach 1.8 billion dollars compared to 1.5 billion dollars in the same month last year.

As part of the ministry’s efforts to eradicate illegal immigration, it launched the first training course in the field of combating illegal migration in cooperation with the National Center for Social and Criminal Research.

In Oct., Makram met with Mr. Mohamed Farid, President of the Egyptian Stock Exchange. Based on that meeting, the financial supervision approved by the Stock Exchange In the matter of allowing Egyptians abroad to cover or update their data, using the passport to be valid and to have a valid passport and contain the national number in order to contribute to the removal of penalties and difficulties facing Egyptian investors residing abroad.

First electronic platform for young Egyptian expatriates was launched to enlarge the database of these young people and to benefit from their suggestions, opinions and impressions, in addition to providing them with all the correct information about Egypt.

This platform aims at confronting any misconceptions related to the Egyptian culture and Egyptian society, according to Minister of Migration Nabila Makram during her meeting with a group of young expats, Chairman of Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee Karim Darwish and parliamentarian of Luxor City Ahmed Idris.

The meeting was held at the sideline of the World Youth Forum (WYF 2018) in Sharm el-Sheikh resort city.

Moreover, some of the young expats who attended the meeting asked the political leadership in Egypt to give them an opportunity to join the Presidential Leadership Program (PLP) by allowing them to be examined online.

Minister Makram headed launched “Roots Revival II” initiative, also known as “Nostos 2” from London she where she met with the Greek Deputy Foreign Minister Terence Nicholas and Cyprus’ Presidential Commissioner for humanitarian affairs Photis Photiou.

Moreover, Makram promoted President -Sisi’s campaign to combat hepatitis C in the framework of the medical tourism protocol signed among the three countries.

Ten doctors from Egypt, Greece and Cyprusk took part in the initiative in coordination with the three countries’ communities overseas. It’s noteworthy that a sixth tripartite presidential summit held early October in Crete Island encompassed Egypt, Greece and Cyprus.

In London, Makram met with members of the British Parliament. In the meantime, Egyptian doctors in London engaged into a round table discussion.

Another round table was held in coordination with Minister of Tourism Rania al-Mashat to promote medical tourism in Egypt taking advantage of the migrants.

Translator: Nawal Sayed