Over the past 10 months of fiscal year (FY) 2014/2015, the Industrial Development Authority (IDA) issued over 2,300 approvals for industrial projects, Minister of Industry and Foreign Trade Mounir Fakhry Abdel Nour said Sunday. Abdel Nour added in a statement that 1,645 of the final approvals are worth EGP 27.9bn in investments, while another 700 expansion approvals are worth EGP 48.6bn. The lands allocation system has changed after ratifying the New Investment Law in March. Abdel Nour explained at the time that the new law extensively focuses on the procedures of land allocation to investors from article 71 to article 83. These aim to coordinate and facilitate between the relevant parties that have authority over lands. The law has also offered unprecedented incentives for lands in remote areas, such as allocating lands through purchasing, leasing or on a usufruct basis at low prices. This enables the government's participation in paying workers' insurance and the training of workers in remote areas to raise their capabilities. Abdel Nour added that the law also obliges the government to offer incentives for labour-intensive, energy, logistics and production projects, as well as projects in remote areas. The incentives will allow investors to establish customs ports, in coordination with the Ministry of Finance, and obtain energy at low prices. It also obliges the government to fully or partially repay the costs of providing lands with facilities to the investor after the project's allocation, in addition to bearing the cost of training workers. Under the new law, there will be a "one-stop shop" for investor to complete all the necessary procedures to implement projects, and the IDA will be represented in this.
