French Ambassador to Cairo Stéphane Romatet announced on Wednesday, that France intends to inject more investments into Egypt, pointing to the interest of French companies in expanding their activities in the coming period. Romatet announcement came during a meeting between a number of French companies, with minister of investment and international cooperation, Sahar Nasr, and Fabio Grazi, director of the French Development Agency in Cairo. The meeting was attended by Schneider Electric, Groupe SEB, Saint-Gobain, Carrefour, L'Oreal, Naos, Mortimer Harvey, Edison, Orange, Air Liquide, Sanofi, Finchi, and Credit Agricole bank, among others, who praised the economic reforms in Egypt. The companies announced that the current business climate has become suitable to attract more French investments to Egypt, which amounted to $4bn through 160 French companies, after the $200m investments increase witnessed during the fiscal year (FY) 2017/18, and contributed to the creation of about 35,000 jobs in industry, tourism, agriculture, telecommunications, transport, infrastructure, and financial services sectors. During the meeting, Walid Sheta, Cluster President NEA, and the Levant Schneider Electric, said that his company's investments in Egypt reached €208m in 2018, as well as increasing the company's the paid-up capital was increased by €20m. While, Nicolas Katcharov, general manager Egypt Branch and VP North Africa at Edison, said his company's investments in Egypt amounted to $2.8bn. While L'Oréal Egypt's managing director, Benoit Julia, said that 99% of the company's employees are Egyptians, and that they produced about 80m cosmetic units by the end of 2018, an increase of 5m from last year. Furthermore, Julia added that €50m were allocated for the construction of the L'Oreal factory in Cairo, to become the regional export hub for the Middle East and North Africa. Jean-François Nicolas is the vice president, Finance and Governance of Air Liquide Engineering & Construction, explained that they plan to invest EGP 2bn within the next three years. Hanane Badra, managing director – Groupe SEB, said her company is investing more than €30m in Egypt in 2018/2019. On the other hand, Nasr expressed her hope for increasing French investments in Egypt, praising the support of the French Development Agency for Egypt, which exceeded €1.2bn, including €5.6m grants to Egypt. Moreover, Nasr emphasised the importance of cooperation between French companies and other European companies in pumping joint investments in Egypt, in addition to cooperation between the French Development Agency and a number of international financial institutions, such as the World Bank in supporting a number of development projects in Egypt.
