Egyptian exports under the Qualifying Industrial Zone (QIZ) Agreement reached $ 12.3 billion in 14 years, from 2005 till 2019, according to Minister of Planning Hala el-Saeed.
This came during the first meeting of the committee for examining QIZ proposals for doubling exports in the zone. the meeting was attended by Ministers Niveen Gamea of Trade, Mohamed Ma’it of Finance and Hisham Tawfik of Public Enterprise Sector.
Saeed added that Egypt’s industrial exports are fully exempted from tariffs in US markets.
According to Saaed, about 49 American companies invested in Egypt within the framework of QIZ, noting that foreign companies’ exports in Egypt hit about $313 million.
“The exports of the Egyptian-foreign joint companies recorded $ 91 million,” she said.
For his part, Tawfik said that the spinning and weaving industry is the backbone of ready-made clothes industry.
He noted that the ministry allocated about LE 21 billion for upgrading this industry.
Manager of QIZ unit at Ministry of Trade Ashraf Rabei said that Egypt ranked no 20 on the list of countries exporting ready-made clothes and textiles to the US with total exports of $ 1 billion, including $987 million under QIZ.
Egypt signed QIZ agreement with Israel and the United States in December 2004, allowing Egyptian products to enter American markets with no tariffs, provided that Israeli components represent 11.7 percent of these products.
In October 2017, Egypt signed a new agreement with Israel, including a modification of the QIZ deal, reducing the percentage of Israeli components in Egyptian products to 10.5 percent.
