Egypt’s Ministry of Trade and Industry is planning on reducing the time it takes to obtain industrial licences to 30 days, according to Yasser al-Maghrabi, the minister’s adviser.

Speaking on the sidelines of MEED’s Egypt Mega Projects Conference held in Cairo on 15 November, Al-Maghrabi said a new law to “reduce the time from 600 to 30 days is currently being discussed in parliament”.

“The main driver for our trade and industry plan will be foreign investment,” he said. "Our plan for the next years will be to encourage the foreign investor. We are facing many problems regarding industrial licensing. It currently takes more than 600 days to get an industrial licence – we are discussing a law to reduce this to only 30 days to save investors time and money.”

The ministry will also take ownership of all industrial projects outside the proposed Suez Canal Economic Zone (SCZone) in order to offer a similar one-stop shop window for investors.

The Ministry of Trade and Industry recently set itself a target to boost non-oil exports by 10 per cent a year to $30bn by 2020.

The total volume of Egyptian non-petroleum exports reached about $18.6bn in 2015.

The strategy also targets upgrading the competitiveness of Egypt’s exports, improving the specifications and qualities of exports and imports, developing logistic transport projects and activating global agreements as well as a programme aiming at promoting Egyptian exports.

Egypt’s exports were given an additional boost earlier this month, when the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) decided to allow the Egyptian pound to float, which resulted in a 50 per cent devaluation, making Egyptian products more competitive.