São Paulo – In a bid to draw in foreign investors and spur national economy into growth in the wake of a four-year period of political, economic and social turmoil, the Egyptian government is holding from Friday (13th) to Sunday (15th) the Egypt Economic Development Conference in Sharm El-Sheikh, along the Red Sea coast.
Prominent international figures should attend, including International Monetary Fund (IMF) managing director Christine Lagarde and the United States secretary of State John Kerry. Other participants will include chairmen Ahmet Bozer of Coca-Cola, Jeffrey Immelt of GE, Joe Kaeser of Siemens, former Pimco fund CEO Mohamed El Erian, and several other executives from multinational corporations, government officials and multilateral organization delegates.
The conference will be hosted by the Egyptian president Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi himself, and is part of the country’s medium-term economic strategy. Highlight topics will include government’s past and future reforms to ensure macroeconomic stability, fuel growth and lure investment. Existing investment opportunities will also be outlined.
News agency Reuters has reported that the Egyptian government is wagering on the conference to improve the country’s image and pull billions of investor dollars in. To this end, the idea is to give off a sense of stability and publicize reforms such as the fuel subsidy cuts and paperwork reduction.
Lackluster economic performance, unemployment and inflation triggered the eruption of the Arab Spring in 2011 –which, in Egypt, led to the ousting of then-president Hosni Mubarak, therefore the current administration is striving to prove itself in these areas.
The Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce will be represented at the event by government relations executive Tamer Mansour. He says the conference’s goals are to regain confidence in the economy, encourage investment and discuss the major challenges facing the country.
He listed some of the investment opportunities that will be presented: the Suez Canal expansion project, worth an estimated US$ 8.2 billion and expected to increase annual revenues from US$ 5 billion to US$ 13.5 billion for the waterway connecting the Mediterranean and Red seas; the opening of free zones; the financial and capital markets; and the oil and gas industry.
The Brazilian government will be represented by ambassador Paulo Cordeiro, the undersecretary-general for the Política III (Policy III) chapter of the Brazilian Foreign Ministry, in charge of Middle East and Africa.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
