Nevine Gamea, Egypt's Minister of Trade and Industry and CEO of the Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises Development Agency (MSMEDA), has highlighted the "Decent Life" initiative's integrated technical services. Gamea also highlighted that these services are being provided to citizens in the initiative's targeted villages to develop their skills and abilities and to help them start up small projects. The minister said that the presidential "Decent Life" initiative represents the Egyptian state's efforts to achieve sustainable development and Egypt's Vision 2030. It is also considered the largest initiative in Egyptian history, and aims to change villages for the better, she added. Gamea said that MSMEDA chairs the Economic Development Committee, which stems from the initiative. Since the start of the initiative, it has drawn up a comprehensive plan to expand the programmes it implements to educate citizens in the villages under the initiative. It aims to educate them on the concept of self-employment, and inform them of all the services provided by the state to support the small enterprises sector. The minister added that the agency's branches across Egypt provide integrated technical services to citizens in these areas, to develop their skills and capabilities to help them set up small projects. The project service units assist citizens in obtaining all necessary documents to establish new projects or transfer their informal projects to the official sector. They also help them in marketing their products, enabling them to continue and expand their projects. Gamea said that, since the beginning of 2021, MSMEDA's branches have organised more than 500 seminars to educate citizens about the services it provides relating to establishing projects, mechanisms for obtaining financing, tax incentives, and assistance with marketing. The minister added that 65 training courses have been organised, benefiting more than 1,000 trainees, during which they were introduced to the basics of starting small projects and how to develop their existing projects. The service units in the governorates targeted by the initiative issued 645 final operating licences, 698 temporary licences, and 71 regularisation licences for projects operating in the informal sector and transferred to the formal sector. She indicated that 783 project classification certificates and 159 project certificates were issued so that users could make use of the benefits stipulated in the Enterprise Development Law. This is in addition to 471 tax cards, 120 commercial registers, and 279 social insurance certificates.
