U.S. to Develop Action Plan for Boosting Trade with Egypt (01/30/2012)

U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk and Egyptian Minister for Industry and Foreign Trade Mahmoud Eisa met Jan. 12 and agreed to jointly develop within the next few weeks an action plan designed to further enhance their two countries’ bilateral trade and investment relationship. The action plan will have three main objectives: boosting exports, expanding investment and supporting small and medium enterprises, with a focus on stimulating job creation. Individual elements of the program could initially include cooperation in areas such as the following.

• increasing trade in goods by working to increase Egypt’s utilization of the Generalized System of Preferences program, redesignate current qualifying industrial zones to allow for fresh investment and expand the QIZ program to Upper Egypt, and accelerate U.S. reviews of requests to approve imports of Egyptian plant products

• initiatives to promote investment and services trade, including business missions to Egypt, organizing investment conferences, providing expert technical assistance, and a joint statement in which the U.S. commits to promote the growth of investment and services in the Egyptian market, Egypt confirms the openness of its market to international investment and both sides agree on shared investment principles

• ◦enhance the SME sector in Egypt by sharing best practices in SME support, providing expertise to help SMEs participate more actively in international trade, establishing SME business centers and providing financing by the Overseas Private Investment Corporation to encourage Egyptian banks to lend to SMEs

Other areas of cooperation may include customs, trade facilitation and promotion, agricultural trade, labor, regional cooperation, protecting intellectual property rights, promoting innovation and good regulatory practices.

© 2011, Sandler, Travis & Rosenberg, P.A. Originally published in ST&R’s WorldTradeInteractive..
Reprinted by permission.