CAIRO: Egyptian Prime Minister Essam Sharaf said there is a chance for Egypt to move towards several political developments in order to spread transparency and to create democratic and rational administration for the Egyptian. He said this during the Euro-Mediterranean Business Summit in Cairo. The Egyptian government faces many challenges settling in the quality of education and its link to the labor market in creating more job opportunities, said the Egyptian Minister of Industry and Interior Trade, Mahmoud Issa on behalf of Sharaf. Issa added these challenges could the chance for change can be seized, especially since the Euro-Mediterranean area has millions of youth eager to get job opportunities with businessmen and invest more and more in the region. Egypt is keen on commitments to all international trade conventions, and participation with investors and merchants. Egypt is overlooking more investment to confront this critical period in the Egyptian economy, he continued. European countries should seek establishing more joint projects in Egypt to increase the mutual trade, according to Issa. Egypt has wide horizons in its policy in the Mediterranean area. This policy aims to expand cooperation scope to cover the North and South states of the Mediterranean. In addition, Europe is great trade partner to Egypt, according to Issa. Egypt adopted the initiative of The Agadir Agreement for establishing a free trade zone between Arabic Mediterranean Nations including Jordan, Tunisia, Egypt and Morocco. The Chairman of Federation of Egyptian Chambers of Trade, Ahmed el-Wakeel, expressed his apology for the Egyptian government's unprepared stance for its economic future. He also feels apologetic towards the usage of all the available chances since it did not attract enough technology operations and investments to Egypt to invest on Egyptian territory. Egypt needs more support form the government to negotiate with European countries to open new trade liberations passages, added el-Wakeel, who called on countries to enlarge their investments in Egypt. “The Egyptian economy face many obstacles and so Egypt should find the opportunity to confront it specially since the economy deteriorated since the Egyptian January 25 Revolution. However, Egypt has broad-based human resources for development and potential growth in the future,” Chairman of the General Authority for Investment Osama Saleh said. The revolution highlighted Europe's support to Egypt economically and politically, Saleh added. He pointed out European investments in Egypt increased to U.S. $110 million and there are investments valued at U.S. $14 billion. Saleh noted Egypt cannot stop its commitments to the free market and international agreements signed before the January 25 Revolution. The chairman of the Union of Turkish Chambers and Commodity Exchanges, Rifat Hisarciklioglu, said Egypt lives a democratic and free moment, born in Tahrir Square. This moment gives a chance to cancel all economic and social differences. He highlighted the importance of establishing economic unity throughout safe investing environment, which could create more than 5 million job opportunities in the Mediterranean region. There should be more support to international projects created for small industries like building houses. The region can easily enhance 48 large-scale projects, Hisarciklioglu added.
