Egypt to launch 3rd stage of exporters support programme on Sunday
Doaa A.Moneim, , Wednesday 30 Jun 2021
Finance Minster Mohamed Maait said that the action comes in implementation of President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi’s decision to back exporting companies amid the ongoing COVID-19 crisis


Egypt’s government, through the finance ministry, will launch the third stage of the exporters support programme on Sunday, according to Minister of Finance Mohamed Maait.

The third stage is dedicated to repaying the arrears of exporters that are due till the end of June, said Maait.

Maait said that the action comes in implementation of President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi’s decision to back exporting companies amid the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.

The programme is a presidential initiative that allows exporters to receive their arrears from the Export Development Fund (EDF) as instant cash repayments.

In September 2020, the government had launched the first stage of the initiative that targeted instant cash repayment of export companies’ arrears before the end of 2020 at a repay acceleration discount of 15 percent, while it came into effect in November.

Maait said that the companies that are willing to benefit from the programme’s third stage need to submit their application as of the coming Sunday 4 July through 29 July in the same conditions of the previous two stages.

“2000 exporter companies, which registered in the programmes’ two previous stages, were handed close to EGP 16.4 billion. 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,” said Maait.

Nevine Mansour, advisor of the finance minister's deputy 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 custom 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.

https://english.ahram.org.eg/News/416306.aspx