Cairo: The Qualified Industrial Zones (QIZ) Unit at the Ministry of Trade and Industry has set off a number of measures to cut down the Israeli component requirement by one percentage point to 10.7 percent. Minister of Trade and Industry Rachid Mohamed Rachid said in a statement Monday that the QIZ Unit would coordinate its efforts with the agreement's tripartite committee, which include representatives from the US, Israel and Egypt, to curb the Israeli component requirement. Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert during his latest visit to Egypt had agreed to reduce the component requirement in the QIZs agreement. President Hosni Mubarak had also announced on Friday that the prime minister accepted the Egyptian proposal to cut down the Israeli component requirement by one percentage point to 10.7 percent for Egyptian goods exported to the US under the QIZs agreement. Ehab Al-Messiri, a director of the Textiles Industries Chamber in Egypt, urged for continued pressures to curb the component requirement to 8 percent in line with the qualified industrial zones in Jordan. Magdi Tolba, chairman of the Readymade Garments Commodity Council, expressed fears that Israeli components producers would fail to meet the requirement in view of the fast growth in the Egyptian textiles industry with influx of international investors. He pointed out that his council had received complaints about the Israeli failure to meet the component requirement under the QIZs agreement.
