Mubarak to review three major economic files
Egypt, Economics, 5/5/2001

Egyptian President Mubarak will shortly review three important economic files recently prepared by the government.

The first one is concerned with modernizing the state sectors mainly industry for which the government has allocated LE 500 million in the new budget.

Modernization of this sector is an initial step for setting a date for signing the Egyptian European partnership.

The EU had asked for introducing improvements and modernization steps in this sector before signing the agreement.

Prime Minister Atef Ebeid said he and the economic group are preparing the second file setting measures for modernizing the banking sector to meet international standards.

He said modernization of this sector aims at reinforcing financial position of banks and turning them into strong entities.

He said the third file includes rules for increasing state resources of foreign exchange and maintaining balance between resources and foreign exchange payments.

He said measures contained in this file aim at increasing foreign exchange reserve and adopting a policy that guarantee stability of the Egyptian pound exchange rate.

In the context of Egyptian efforts for reactivating investments, expanding trade exchange, Prime Minister Atef Ebeid will visit Libya and Jordan this month.

Prime Minister Atef Ebeid will visit Libya on Tuesday at the head of the Egyptian delegation to the meetings of the joint higher Egyptian Libyan committee.

The Prime Minister told A1 Ahram that meetings with the Libyan side will tackle arrangements for holding the Arab economic summit in Cairo in November.

His talks will also tackle ways of reactivating joint ventures between the two countries in the field of medicines, petroleum, gas, electricity, transport and agriculture.

The committee will discuss measures for developing cooperation in the field of medicine production and marketing, construction of a gas pipeline between the two countries, and the Libyan input to Toshki project.

Ebeid said talks will also cover horizons of trade exchange, opening markets in Egypt and Libya and eliminating obstacles to the flow of commodities between the two countries.

The Prime Minister will be accompanied by 20 businessmen who will discuss ways of expanding trade exchange through signing an equal treatment agreement and establishing a promotion committee for eliminating commodity inspection measures, certificates of origin and joint inspection points.

Ambassador Hany Khallaf, the chairman of the Egyptian Relations Follow-up office in Tripoli said the convention of the higher committee was prompted by directives by Presidents Mubarak and Gaddafi in Tripoli last month.

He said the committee would discuss expanding horizons of joint cooperation in many sectors mainly political and diplomatic coordination. He said it will also discuss many issues such as petroleum, natural gas, trade exchange, education, information, sports , social insurances and joint investments.

Ambassador Khallaf said the volume of trade exchange between the two countries has reached $ 116 million adding this figure is targetted to reach $ 500 million by the year 2005.

Previous Stories:
  Cabinet reviews four key economic reports   (5/3/2001)
  Egypt, Turkey seek closer economic ties   (5/3/2001)
  Libyan- Egyptian committee to meet within days   (5/3/2001)

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