Arab Republic of Egypt Ministry of Investment and Foreign Trade General Organization for Export and Import Control

Today, on Wednesday General Organization for Export and Import Control, headed by Eng. Essam El-Naggar, hosted an expanded meeting in which representatives from Central Bank of Egypt, Maritime Transport Sector, Suez Canal Economic Zone, Federation of Egyptian Chambers of Commerce, Egyptian Customs Authority, and all regulatory agencies participated to coordinate commencement of operating customs release offices and bank branches at ports throughout the week that will start next Friday.

The meeting reviewed possibility of providing more facilities to reduce time and cost of releasing products, as it was confirmed that all parties agreed to exert efforts for reducing customs release time to help improve investment environment in Egypt and attract more foreign direct investment, and also support the competitiveness of domestic products in global markets by reducing logistics costs and increasing velocity of circulation of goods. 

These procedures aim at reducing customs release time, delivering goods and products to the citizens as quickly as possible and at reasonable prices, and easing additional burdens of the dollar for the period of containers congestion at ports on weekends, and thus it helps improve Egypt's position in international trade indicators.

Eng. Hassan El Khatib, Minister of Investment and Foreign Trade, announced an ambitious government plan aimed at gradually reducing the customs release time for imports to reach two days by 2025, in a move that enhances the efficiency of customs operations and improves the business environment in Egypt. The minister explained that the plan will be implemented in two phases, the first of which aims to reduce the release time to (4) days, which will improve the efficiency of operations and ease burden on investors. 

The second phase aims to reduce the time to only two days, which contributes to enhancing commercial competitiveness, reducing logistics costs, and reducing the time required for goods to reach the markets.