In collaboration with Germany's Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy, and Lithuania's Competition Council, the Egyptian Competition Authority (ECA) will launch the new twinning project Sunday, May 10, 2015. Focus of this EU funded project is to enhance the capacity of the ECA to foster an effective competition law enforcement system in Egypt within the framework of a free-market economy, and in line with commitments entered into within the Egypt/EU Association Agreement. The launch event will be in the presence of Egyptian Minister of Industry and Trade Mounir Fakhry Abdel Nour and Minister of International Cooperation Naglaa Al-Ehwany. The twinning project aims at developing the technical, administrative, and institutional capacities of the Egyptian Competition Authority by providing European technical expertise and offering peer-to-peer learning opportunities with officials and technical experts of the German Cartel Office and the Lithuanian Competition Council. The launch event stressed the significance of a robust competition law and policy – coupled by strong enforcement capacity – for national development. The project includes three main components, focused on; enhancing the efficiency and the effectiveness of the legal framework of competition policies and relations with other regulatory authorities, raising the efficiency and effectiveness of the institutional framework and human resources of the ECA staff, and contributing to awareness raising on the competition law and policies. From her part, Mona El-Garf, Chairperson of the Egyptian Competition Authority, pointed out that the twinning project is one of the technical instruments provided by the EU funded Support to the Association Agreement Programme to develop the capacities of the Egyptian institutions in line with their EU counterparts. She voiced her pleasure that the twinning project coincides with the ECA's tenth anniversary. The launch event coincides with the ECA's tenth anniversary. To mark this occasion, El-Garf will make a presentation on salient accomplishments of the ECA - starting from the law amendments of 2014, stressing the significance that competition should be protected by virtue of the new Egyptian constitution as enshrined by article 27, receiving a court ruling from Cairo Economic Court of Appeal on the competence of the ECA to consider anti-trust practices in the communication sector, and finally the ECA award in the World Bank contest of competition policy support.
