Dubai – Egypt’s General Investment Authority (GAFI) was named the best investment promotion agency in the Middle East and North Africa at the Annual Investment Meeting (AIM), a conference on foreign direct investment which ended this Wednesday (11) in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates. Morocco was also a finalist for the accolade.
GAFI CEO Mona Zobaa said the organization was picked due to a healthcare project rolled out in Egypt with Saudi Arabian capital.
“We have also been appointed general managers of the World Association of Investment Promotion Agencies (WAIPA) in the region,” Zobaa told ANBA. Egypt played a prominent role in the AIM. Its appeal to investors was discussed, and it had stands in the trade show concurrent with the conference.
Following the so-called Arab Spring, in 2011, Egypt struggled with weak investment inflows and a dearth of US dollars in the domestic market, until it began to put in place economic and foreign exchange reforms in late 2016. According to Zobaa, after 2011 the country had been seeing roughly USD 2 billion in FDI per year, and this soared to USD 8 billion in the past fiscal year.
Egypt passed a new investment law and announced a host of projects in construction, tourism, industry, mining, infrastructure etc. The country is being targeted primarily by investment from Gulf countries.
Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
