Ashraf El Sharqawy, Minister of Public Sector Affairs, said that the public sector companies achieved profits of EGP 2.7bn in the first half of the current fiscal year (FY) for the first time since 2010. He added, during his speech in the annual summit for capital markets on Monday that 87 out of 121 companies improved their performance. He mentioned that the government has prepared an integrated plan for the development of governmental pharmaceutical companies. El Sharqawy noted that the plan included increasing the market shares of the companies. In the 1970s, the government companies accounted for 91%, compared to the current share that declined to 8%. "We can't mention these numbers without considering that in the seventies there were neither private nor foreign companies or commercial offices competing with the government companies—the market was closed," El Sharqawy said. He added that the ministry has a plan for the development of the pharmaceutical sector, including the development of production lines and adding new products. However, reaching the old market quota is impossible. He said that increasing the market shares requires Egypt to innovate pharmaceutical research that allows it to produce new drugs, especially since drugs that raise the market shares of companies, such as oncology drugs, are invented by foreign companies which impose on them intellectual property rights for long years.
