Egypt’s Ministry of Finance has received 600 applications from export companies that are willing to benefit from the cash repayment for exporters initiative in its third stage which was launched more than a week ago, Finance Minister Mohamed Maait announced on Sunday.

Export companies can submit their applications until 29 July, according to the minister.

On 30 June, the finance ministry launched the third stage of the exporters support programme that allows the companies to obtain their arrears from the Development Fund (EDF) as instant cash repayments.

Maait noted that the arrears of this stage are expected to be disbursed by end of September through end of October with an acceleration discount of 15 percent.

In September 2020, the government launched the first stage of the initiative that targeted instant cash repayment of export companies’ arrears before the end of 2020, while it came into effect in November.

A sum of EGP 16.4 billion were disbursed to 2,000 export companies that registered in the programmes’ two previous stages, according to the finance ministry.

Since the launch of all initiatives that target the cash repayments of the exporters’ arrears in October 2019, the beneficiaries received EGP 28 billion — the biggest support extended to Egypt’s export sector ever.

Nevine Mansour, an advisor to the deputy finance minister for financial policies, said that 2,500 export companies benefited from the other five initiatives, with a total of EGP 5.6 billion disbursed for exports in FY 2019/2020 and EGP 2.4 billion disbursed from July to November 2020.

The cabinet has approved five initiatives since October 2019 to settle exporters’ arrears through June 2019.

The initiatives included repaying small investors a maximum of EGP 5 million, the repayment of 30 percent of all arrears to exporters, holding a set-off between exporters’ arrears and the payable tax and customs obligations on them, the repayment of the total arrear sums over four to five years while expanding their investments in return, and the land allocation initiative.