The industrial sector will contribute 30 percent to the gross domestic product by the end of 2020 after the central bank has launched a new initiative to support the industry sector, according to Chairman of Chemicals & Fertilizers Export Council Khaled Abul Makarem. He dded that the initiative will attractnew foreign investments into Egyptt where the investor could provide only 50 percent of the capital and gets the remaining part as loans from banks. The government and the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) have launched a 100 billion pounds initiative to boost domestic manufacturing by allowing medium-sized factories access to subsidized loans at a declining 10% interest rate. The initiative will cover 96,000 industrial enterprises, and 5.2k factories will also be exempt from accrued interest rates and see their names removed from a blacklist maintained by the CBE. However, the total amount of overdue payments reached 31 billion pounds, Abul Makarem noted.
