|
Privatization Amid Challenges
"Privatization amid challenges" was the title of a speech
delivered by Mokhtar Khattab, minister of public enterprise, at
the AmCham monthly meeting held on September 17 at the Semiramis
Inter-Continental Hotel.
The minister said that Egypt’s privatization program was
distinguished by its social dimension – finding solutions to the
problems of the country’s growing workforce, rising debts and the
increasing use of technology – and that from 1997 there had been
change to a system of selling companies to an anchor investor.
He said that the government’s restructuring program had brought
down the number of companies experiencing losses to 41 last year,
compared to 108 in 1992/3, and that the losses of public sector
companies had fallen in the same period from LE 2.5 billion to LE
1.5 billion. In the same period, profitable companies increased their
revenues to LE 3.6 billion from LE 2.5 billion, just as total
profits last year reached LE 2.1 billion compared to 1992/3’s LE
24 million.
AmCham president Mohamed Mansour said that Egypt’s privatization
experiment provides a model for privatization with a social slant,
drawing attention to the government’s plans in a variety of sectors
and its use of the BOT system.
According to Khattab, international institutions view that Egypt’s
privatization program will lead to sustainable growth and render the
Egyptian economy one of the most important of the developing
economies. However, there are a number of problems facing the program
that Khattab also addressed – excess labor, the effects of the
transition from an economy working under heavy government
intervention, and technical and management rehabilitation.
Khattab took questions from the audience on a wide range of associated
topics. He affirmed that the privatization program would be a partial
solution to the liquidity crisis in Egypt, though it would also
be necessary to attract more foreign investment.
Top
|
