Egypt Advances 6 Spots in WB Business Report

According to the World Bank, Egypt advanced 6 spots in the Doing Business Report (DB) in 2020.

The Ministry of Investment and International Cooperation said in a statement on Thursday that the report monitored Egypt's reforms that helped improve the investment climate and simplify business procedures in four areas, where Egypt advanced 19 spots globally.

The Ministry pointed out that this progress demonstrates the impact of the Ministry's efforts in simplifying procedures for investors at the national level, where a series of radical reforms have been adapted within the framework of an integrated methodology.

Efforts include the implementation of legislative reforms including digital transformation, the training of  labor force on new systems as well as strengthening partnership with the private sector, leading to a qualitative leap on the business index in the establishment of companies to rank 90 compared to last year's 109th.

Efforts include implementing legislative reforms including digital transformation, training the workforce on new systems, as well as strengthening partnership with the private sector, leading to a qualitative leap in the business index to rank 90th on enterprise establishment from last year's 109th.

According to the report, Egypt advanced in the Getting electricity sub-index by about 19 spots, in light of the speed of delivery to citizens, which included the development of production and distribution infrastructure, which reflected on the reliability of providing electricity and reducing the cost of delivery to beneficiaries.

In addition, more transparency in electricity prices was adopted, which improved Egypt's ranking from 96th to 77th. Egypt also advanced in the sub-index of protection of small investors by about 15 spots from 72nd to 57th, due to legislative reforms and business protection.

The report added that Egypt has advanced 3 spots in the Paying Taxes sub-index to settle at 156th place, including the application of Value Added Tax (VAT) and the implementation of government e-payments.

In the meantime, Egypt is expected to progress in this index next year , in light of the reforms undertaken by Egypt during the Q4 2018.

The report said Egypt was among the top 25 countries in the world in terms of the number of reforms in this year's 2020 report, reflecting the government's continued commitment to improving the investment climate and simplifying procedures for investors.

On her part, Minister of Investment Sahar Nasr confirmed that the report monitors the reform measures implemented until April 2019, noting that there are many new reform measures that have been applied, which are expected to positively affect many of the indicators during next year's report.

Nasr praised Egypt's progress on Starting a business and Protecting investors, following the measures taken to improve the investment climate, as part of the strategy adopted by the state to enable the private sector to play its role, opening the horizons of cooperation to attract more foreign direct investments (FDI).