Economic Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives, during its meeting held today headed by the representative Mohamed Abdelhamid, Deputy Chairman of the Committee, approved the Draft Law of amending certain provisions of Law No.121 of 1982 on Importers’ Register.
Engineer/ Essam EL-Naggar, Chairman of General Organization of Export and Import Control (the GOEIC): We work according to the plan of his Excellency, the Minister of Investment and we intend to provide more facilities for the investors.
The most prominent amendments: Permitting the companies to use the capital in foreign currency and granting the heirs a duration for legalizing their status and reconciliation regarding infringements.
The Economic Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives, during its meeting held today headed by the representative Mohamed Abdelhamid, Deputy Chairman of the Committee, approved the Draft Law of amending certain provisions of Law No.121 of 1982 on Importers’ Register.
The amendments provide that:
Article No. (2) Last Section
In all cases, amounts stated in this Article, may be equivalent to freely convertible foreign currencies.
Article No. (4) bis
Without prejudice to Article No. (2) and (4) of this law, the competent authority in the Ministry of Foreign Trade shall re-enroll the companies previously registered in the importers’ register when its legal status is changed or its registration number is modified in accordance with the procedures specified by the Executive Regulation and the re-enrollment, in such case, shall be deemed as a modification to the data in the register.
Article No. (7): Last Section
The re-enrollment in the register may be permissible if the natural person’s heirs establish a corporation for the purpose of practicing the same activity of their deceased person during one year and half of the death date, provided that the company shall be exempted from terms and conditions set forth in Section (a), Clause (Second) of Article No. (2) of this Law.
Article No. (3): Clause (3)
Who abstain from notifying the competent authority in the Ministry of Foreign Trade with respect to any or all changes or amendments in the data enlisted in the register within two years from the date of their occurrence in breach of provisions of Article (4) of this Law.
Article No. (12) bis
The competent authority in the Ministry of Foreign Trade shall reconcile with the person accused of crimes specified in Articles (11), (10), and (8) of this Law as follows:
Before filing the criminal case to a competent court against payment of sum of money not less than minimum of the imposed fine and it shall not exceed one third of maximum fine.
After filing the criminal case to the competent court and until issuance of final court verdict in return for paying sum of money not less than three times the minimum fine and shall not exceed one third of maximum fine.
After the verdict becomes final and decisive against payment of sum of money less than the maximum imposed fine and shall not exceed the maximum imposed fine
The reconciliation mandates the abatement of the criminal case and all the consequences of the ruling, as the case may be, and the Public Prosecution orders the suspension of executing the penalty if the reconciliation is conducted during the execution thereof.
Article No. (3)
The Minister of Foreign Trade shall issue a resolution of amending the provisions of the Executive Regulation of Law No. 121 of 1982 to enforce the provisions of this Law, within thirty days from the date of the application hereof and until this resolution is issued, the aforementioned Executive Regulation shall continue to be applicable without prejudice to the provisions hereof.
The explanatory memorandum of the Draft Law mentioned that, in recognition of the importance of enrollment in the importers’ register for the importers, whether they are legal persons or natural persons, the legislator prescribed a comprehensive Regulatory Law, that is Law No. 121 of 1982 on the Importers’ Register and the Executive Regulation hereof was issued by virtue of Minister of Economy Resolution No. 343. of 1982 that was canceled pursuant to Minister of Trade and Industry Resolution No. 846 of 2017.
continued: “and if it is practically entailed to amend certain provisions of the aforementioned law, Law No. 7 of 2017 was issued amending certain provisions; and in view of the problems faced by officials at the GOEIC resulting from the practical reality of the enforcement of the last law, the enforcement of legislation becomes very necessary once again to amend certain provisions of this Law as follows:
The explanatory memorandum denoted the legislator requires, in Section (3) of Clause (First) and Clauses (d) and (e) of Section (Second) of Article No. 2 for the registration in the Importers’ Register, that the capital recorded in the Commercial Registry when requesting the registration for natural persons shall not be less than Five hundred thousand pounds, and the paid capital of the Partnership and Limited Liability Company shall not be less than two million pounds, and the issued capital of Joint-Stock Companies and Partnerships Limited by Shares shall not be less than five million pounds; whereas the legislator, in such cases, restricted the currency of the paid capital to be in Egyptian Pound, and since it became clear to the competent authority that the capital of many companies consists of foreign currencies, accordingly a final section was added to Article No. 2 that allows the payment of aforementioned amounts according to their equivalent to freely convertible foreign currencies as set forth in the Draft Law.
The explanatory memorandum mentioned that officials in the competent authority also faced a problem as some companies changed their legal status, result in removing the commercial registry of those companies and even changing the tax registration number, which may expose them to be removed from the importers’ register and even informing the Public Prosecution if these companies did not notify the competent authority within sixty days, in application of the provision of Article No. 4 of the Law, and since the state’s laws permit changing the legal status of companies, and even the government intends to encourage medium, small and micro companies to become huge companies, it may be necessary to regulate this issue by adding a new article in the Draft Law, which is Article No. (4) bis as stated herein.
The explanatory memorandum pointed out that officials at the GOEIC faced a problem related to the death of the owner of the individual enterprise and the desire of the heirs to keep the registration in the importers’ register after establishing one of the companies’ forms, as according to Article No. (7) hereof, the importer’s registration is written off upon his death and in this regard, the legislative intervention becomes necessary to amend the aforementioned article in a way that results in exempting the company founded by the heirs from the conditions stipulated in Section (a) of Clause (Second) of Article No. (2) hereof, that included registration in the commercial registry, the volume of business and the tax return on condition that the company’s main purpose is to practice the same activity as the company’s founders, so it was necessary to add a final section to Article No. 7 of the law to address this issue for the heirs of the deceased.
The explanatory memorandum of the Draft Law added that, in view of the above, and Article No. (18) bis of the Criminal Procedure Code permitted the accused to reconcile in the infringements and misdemeanors that are only punishable by imposing a fine, or that are permissibly punishable by imprisonment of maximum six months, it is appropriate to assign a punitive article for all forms of reconciliation, as stated in Article No.(12) bis of the Draft Law.
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