Small debt relief TO END once and for all the issue of defaulters on small debts, the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) announced an offer to cancel the majority of the debt if a percentage is paid by mid-year, reports Mona El-Fiqi. CBE Governor Farouk El-Oqda told a news conference on Monday that four national banks -- namely Banque Misr, the National Bank of Egypt, Banque du Caire and the Industrial Development Bank -- agreed to offer easy-term settlements for 13,000 defaulters whose debts are estimated at LE1.5 billion. According to the initiative, banks would drop 75 per cent of debts less than LE500,000 if the defaulter pays 25 per cent of the debt in cash before 30 June, 2007. El-Oqda continued that defaulters whose debts range between LE500,000 and LE1 million will be required to pay 30 per cent of the money by the same deadline if they want the rest of the debt cancelled. He explained that the initiative aims to encourage 13,000 small- and medium-size enterprises, with a total labour force of around 50,000, to continue working actively in diversified economic activities. Moreover, the offer will help end 10,200 lawsuits which represent 80 per cent of small loan defaulters, and ease the financial burden on banks in pursuing these cases in courts. El-Oqda added that clients who apply for debt cancellation will be prohibited from receiving bank loans for the next five years. As for defaulters who voluntarily pay 60 per cent of their debt in cash before the June deadline, they can apply for bank loans in the coming years. CBE plans to close the file of small loan defaulters by the end of the year. According to El-Oqda, between January 2004, and the end of December 2006, almost 63 per cent of debts belonging to large loan defaulters were settled. Some 20 per cent of them were collected in cash. This initiative, according to the CBE governor, is part of a national policy approved by President Hosni Mubarak in September 2004, to settle the problematic issue of loan defaulters. As a result, the government paid LE16 billion in public sector debts to banks, while the remaining LE10 billion are scheduled to be paid before the end of 2007 from the privatisation proceeds. Egypt-EU twinning THE FIRST twinning agreements between Egypt and the European Union in tourism and postal services were signed on 26 February. The overall funds allocated for the two-year twinning programme are EUR27 million, of which EUR2.3 million will fund tourism twinning and EUR1.4 million for postal services. The signing ceremony was attended by Minister of Information and Communication Technology Tarek Kamel, Minister of Tourism Zohair Garanah and Klaus Ebermann, the EU ambassador to Egypt. The French postal services La Poste Française and the Austrian Tourism Board were selected as Egypt's twinning partners. Representatives of both organisations will work with their Egyptian counterparts to implement an ambitious programme of capacity increase, upgrade and modernisation. The programme will deliver training, coaching and peer-to-peer work in selected areas. Moreover, members of the Egyptian beneficiary organisations will travel to Europe to be acquainted with the organisation and working methods of their European counterparts. The twinning programme is a 1998 initiative by the European Commission in preparation for enlarging the European Union. It was conceived as an instrument for targeted administrative capacity to implement European community legislation as future member states of the EU. Under the European Neighbourhood Policy, Egypt now has access to this cooperation instrument. The action plan of the neighbourhood policy was signed between Egypt and the EU on 6 March in Brussels. Kazakh relations THE FOURTH Egypt-Kazakhistan bilateral committee was held on 26 February to discuss the potential for cooperation in the economic, investment and science sectors. The Egyptian delegation at the two-day meeting in the Kazakh capital Astana was headed by Minister of International Cooperation Fayza Abul-Naga, who stated that the meeting gains more significance in light of the expected visit of the Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev to Egypt from 12 to 14 March. The committee agreed that Egypt would export pharmaceutical products to Kazakhistan and build a pharmaceutical factory in Kazakhistan. Moreover, officials agreed that Egypt would import one million tonnes of wheat from Kazakhistan and create a direct airline route between both countries to encourage tourism to Egypt. Abul-Naga met with Kazakh Prime Minister Karim K Massimov who donated a plot of land in Astana to the Egyptian government to use in marketing Egyptian products there. Massimov announced that his government is considering the issue of means of transportation between the two countries since it is the main obstacle for bilateral trade. Following President Hosni Mubarak's visit to Kazakhistan in November, 2006, the Egyptian-Kazakh Business Council was formed to boost trade relations. The first meeting of the joint business council will be held during Nazarbaev's visit to Egypt.
