Atef Ebeid speaks on privatization efforts

Egyptian Minister of Public Works Atef Ebeid, who supervises the program to privatize public sector companies, said in a press statement on Tuesday that the privatization process pursued by Egypt since 1992 has resulted the sale of 70 companies. Another 80 companies will be put up for sale in June. Earlier, Cairo announced its plans to privatize some 300 Egyptian state companies.

Ebeid added that Egypt will not sign a new agreement on the privatization program with the International Monetary Fund when the programs signed between the two sides expire.

Ebeid continued that the recent report submitted by the IMF by the beginning of 1998 on the Egyptian economy says that the GDP's growth is estimated at 5.7% and noted the need to increase the rate to 7% to ensure job opportunities for the one million young people who join the job market every year.

The IMF report said that Egypt's foreign debt is estimated at US $28 billion.

In the conference Minister Ebeid said the target set for the privatization program was exceeded, and stated that the Asian economic crisis "did not have any negative impact on our performance" adding that Egypt still welcomes international investors coming to invest in its stock market.

Last week, Atef Ebeid stated: "We signed an agreement with a group of strategic investors for companies that produce pressure suits six weeks ago, we signed an agreement for the Kahromita -- that is great contracting company in the power sector -- we received last month a group from Al-Kowa, the biggest Aluminum conlox company in the world."

He added, "We received a group from General Electric involved in the production of electric bulbs and illumination systems. We received a Nigerian group controlling about 40% of the business of silicon in the world and their negotiation is in progress. The appearance of these giants would be very successful. Progress in the international market shows that the quality of the programs is attracting the attention of competent international players."

He said within two weeks, two power plants would be privatized. Three weeks ago an agreement was signed between the Petroleum Authority and a private giant to invest LE 1.7 billion in the construction and management of the network for parts of delta, and said a second one will coming very soon for upper Egypt.

Answering a question about pollution from cement factories, he added that there were studies about replacing these factories.

The minister expressed satisfaction with the passage of four new laws that encourage investment saying "in the new era of investment, the role of government will continue be a catalyst, inviting the private sector to take responsibility for investment in economic enterprises and hopefully in the infrastructure." Then he added, a catalyst means we identify the zones which we think would attract the private sector and we will carry all the studies about the potentialities for these agro and industrial zones among others.

These are zones that are expected to be promoted for international and local investors.

Finally, Minister Atef Ebeid gave an outlook on the Egyptian economy saying, "We expect the inflation to continue to go down since the figures from last month show that the inflation went down to 3.8%, from 4% the month before.

We expect to see a continuous improvement in services, giving more attention to education, housing, health, water and infrastructure."

This comes on the heels of an Egyptian delegation to the US to help improve bilateral trade and investments.