Shura Council approves exclusive economic zones bill
The Egyptian Shura Council approved at its session yesterday the bill of the exclusive economic zones.
The bill provides for the establishment of economic zones outside the urban scope of villages and cities.
These zones, which will be set up under a presidential decree, aim at establishing industrial and service projects.
Under the bill, these units will have legal entities and will be affiliated to the Prime Minister.
During the discussion of the bill, the Prime Minister said the establishment of these exclusive economic zones represents one of the steps necessary for bolstering sustainable development.
He said these zones attract more investments to the various production fields. The Prime Minister said these zones apply highly sophisticated technologies with the aim of increasing exports, providing more job opportunities and opens the horizons of development for all the sectors of production and services.
Ebeid told the Shura Council that the need for establishing these zones has been stressed in the light of the international rivalry for attracting investments and the associated production technologies and the sophisticated techniques of marketing and distribution.
He stressed the need for benefiting from the experience of china, the United States and other industrialized countries.
The Prime Minister said the main pillars of sustainable development are represented in the freedom of investment, elimination of the red tape, and bureaucracy, polarizing more savings and keeping pace with the world economic and technological development all over the world.
The Prime Minister said Egypt has enormous potentials on the Red Sea and Mediterranean coasts which were untapped before adding the implementation of these ideas has belatedly started, indicating that the establishment of the high dam, for example, depended on a number of programs based on free management.
The Prime Minister said the introduction of this bill is nothing new adding it serves as a good model for management.
The Prime Minister said these new zones are aimed at expanding exportation, making an access to foreign markets. He said these zones would be subjected to the state sovereignty.
He said the establishment of these zones in China enabled it of attracting more than 400 billions and the US of attracting more than 200 billion dollars.
The Prime Minister said exports by these zones in Egypt amounted to 516 million dollars adding 400 factories in that -zones have already started production. He said there are other 15 factories under construction at total investments of LE 1.8 billion.