The Egypt Economic Development Conference (EEDC) was held under the slogan of “Egypt the Future” in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh from 13 to 15 March, and attended by the representatives of more than 112 countries. It aimed to breathe new life into Egypt's economy, battered by four years of political turmoil, and to place Egypt on the global investment map. Egypt pinned great hopes on the summit and Egyptian ministers and investment bankers toured the world to promote the conference and drum up support. Around 2,000 delegates attended, including the CEOs of major multinationals, representatives of international financial institutions, businessmen, both domestic and foreign, as well as top-level officials from regional and international economic organisations. The government said the conference was a success and that it had achieved its goals, boasting that deals worth tens of billions of dollars had been signed with major multinationals at the event. Deals finalised were valued at $36 billion, a figure that increased to $60 billion when projects and loans by international financing organisations were included, the latter alone accounting for $5.2 billion. This was in addition to a $12.5 billion aid package from the Gulf countries. Some $6 billion in Gulf aid in the form of deposits was received by Egypt in April from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. An additional $6.5 billion was to be injected into Egypt's economy by the Gulf states in the form of investments and aid. The UAE, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have extended $23 billion in aid and investments to Egypt since June 2013. Meanwhile, projects valued at billions of dollars were also negotiated over the conference's three days but were not included in the final figures. These mostly related to memoranda of understanding that may take some time to materialise as solid contracts. One of the major deals signed was with Siemens. The German industrial giant says it will invest 10 billion euros ($10.5 billion) to increase Egypt's energy production capacity by up to a third by 2020. Most of the announced deals were in the energy sector, in electricity or oil and gas, and in both down- and upstream operations. Top officials from the Italian energy giant Eni, the US's General Electric, the UAE's Ittihad Integrated Petroleum & Chemicals, and the UK's British Petroleum (BP) signed agreements with Egyptian ministries on the fringes of the conference. The largest deal was signed with British Petroleum, which committed $12 billion to developing gas resources and condensates in the West Nile Delta over four years. In November, Egypt went on to sign five oil and gas exploration deals worth around $2.2 billion with Italy's Eni. Those deals were also the result of the EEDC, according to the Petroleum Ministry. During the EEDC, a heads of agreement document was also signed. The proposed deal, worth an estimated $5 billion, is designed to develop Egypt's oil and gas resources and increase the security of return on Eni's investments. The biggest deal at the conference was for exploration in the Gulf of Suez and Nile Delta with an investment of $1.5 billion. The second was in northern Port Said in the Mediterranean, with a minimum investment of $500 million. Minister of Planning Ashraf Al-Arabi said in an interview with the Al-Mal newspaper in August that the results of the EEDC fell into two categories. The first included contracts signed during the conference, mostly in the energy and petroleum sector, and these have all materialised. The second included memoranda of understanding, some of which have been turned into contracts, while others have not. Al-Arabi said that turning memoranda of understanding into solid contracts depends on negotiations that might or might not lead to contracts. The fact that most of the deals at the conference were in the energy and real estate sectors raised concerns among some observers, who feared that the new projects would not create jobs and that the benefits would be reaped by only a lucky few. They believe that these projects are a reminder of Mubarak-era projects that brought in foreign investment and increased growth rates but did not help relieve poverty and income inequality. This capital-intensive investment model, dating from before the 2011 Revolution, achieved a growth rate of seven per cent, but the trickle-down effect never happened and only the business and ruling elites got richer. Along with energy and gas deals, Egypt also unveiled plans to build a new administrative capital east of Cairo. The new city will be built on 700 square km of land between Greater Cairo and the Red Sea. The project, estimated to cost $45 billion, was originally planned to be built by Capital City Partners (CCP), a private real estate investment fund founded by Emirati Mohamed Alabbar, chairman of Emaar Properties of Dubai and the man behind Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. CPP signed an initial agreement for the mega-project at the EEDC. In June, however, Minister of Housing Mostafa Madbouli acknowledged that there were “complications” in the contract negotiations with Alabbar. In September, the government announced that it has signed an agreement with a Chinese company to build and finance the administrative part of the planned new capital. Construction will begin in January 2016, and Egyptian contractors will be given the opportunity to bid for parts of the project. Also during the conference, Egyptian businessman Naguib Sawiris said he was ready to invest $500 million in Egypt and was diversifying his telecoms business into infrastructure, energy and transportation, sectors which need major funds. While some observers have questioned the conference's achievements, arguing that the announced deals were not actually firm commitments and that the terms favoured foreign investors at the expense of domestic labour, the EEDC had major political and economic significance. On the political front, the level of international support, led by the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, dispelled any lingering question marks over the legitimacy of the political roadmap Egypt adopted following the 2013 removal of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi. On the economic front, the conference signalled to the world that Egypt was back in business and succeeded in finalising deals worth tens of billions of dollars. But experts say that Egypt should still address various challenges to boosting investment, the most important of which are bureaucracy and corruption.
