Egypt’s Finance Minister Mohamed Maait, who is also the country’s governor at the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), met with the top committee overseeing the preparations for hosting the bank’s eighth annual meetings in Sharm El-Sheikh on 25 and 26 September.
The meetings will be the first of their kind in Africa and will showcase Egypt’s investment opportunities and incentives for the private sector, as well as the AIIB’s financing options for infrastructure and development projects in Egypt. Maait urged the committee to use this global event to attract foreign investments and enhance the private sector’s role in the economy.
Maait said that the Finance Ministry will host a dialogue session between the Egyptian business community and the AIIB representatives in the New Administrative Capital on September 7. The session, titled “The Developmental Role of the AIIB in Supporting the Private Sector and Future Cooperation Mechanisms”, will aim to create new partnerships between the local private sector and the AIIB, which offers soft financing for green projects, especially renewable energy. The session will also discuss how to maximize the benefits of the AIIB’s approach and exchange opinions and ideas on its role in supporting the private sector and achieving sustainable development.
He pointed out that the participation of 3,000 internationally influential economic figures in the meetings of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, including 106 finance ministers and heads of central banks, can contribute more effectively to attracting foreign investors in light of the strong investments Egypt has witnessed in infrastructure made it more capable of absorbing productive activities, in a way that helps push forward economic recovery efforts and strengthens the macroeconomic structure in facing the internal and external challenges that followed the war in Europe.
Ahmed Kouchouk, Deputy Minister of Finance for Financial Policies and a member of the Board of Directors of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, said that Egypt is looking forward to a greater role for the Asian Bank in supporting the development process in Egypt, by working to provide many opportunities for the private sector and motivate it to invest in areas that top priorities of the Egyptian state, which enjoys global competitiveness, including green economy transformation projects; in line with the extended cooperation between the two sides, which was reflected in financing projects that citizens felt during the last period.
