Purpose

This independent blog collects news about projects or achievements in regulatory reform / better regulation. It is edited by Charles H. Montin. All opinions expressed are given on a personal basis.
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06 June 2011

Egypt confirms regulatory reform policy commitment

On 5 June, Egyptian Regulatory Reform and Development Activity ERRADA announced a conference on managing the stock of legislation, in collaboration with SIGMA, to take place on 8 June in Cairo with international experts. ERRADA, a government initiative, has justs re-vamped their website, which is very informative on what is happening for reform in Egypt. ERRADA was launched in 2008 to build a regulatory management system for business related regulations. See Wikipedia page for a brief history of the agency. ERRADA developed the necessary institutions, tools and processes to enable it to inventory and review existing business related regulations. It also aims to provide accessibility to these regulations to the public and enhance decision making in Egypt through introduction of evidence-based tools (through RIA) into the policy making cycle. The ERRADA site contains the latest government statements on regulatory reform, among which we can notice the strong action in favour of simplifying legislation.
International partners supporting RR in Egypt  include:

  • the EU has an extensive and well funded development programme, including governance and legal reform projects (see 2011-2013 programme). Cooperation prospects are enhanced within the new Neighbourhood Policy announced 25 May;
  • OECD conducted several projects, inter alia the Business Development Climate Strategy and the review of e-government.
  • SIGMA organised a seminar on policy making in 2010 with ERRADA;
  • IFC helped develop a streamlined business registration and licensing process in the Investment Services One-Stop-Shop in the north of Egypt. Overall, the project reduced the time and number of procedures for business start-ups by 30 percent on average. Eventually, the project was rolled out nationally in 2008. The website of the General Authority for Investment (GAFI) publishes a wealth of information useful on Egyptian laws related to business.
As a result of these changes, Egypt continued to move up in the global rankings, rising five places to 94 (Doing Business 2011). In the past year, Egypt reduced the cost of business start-up and made trading easier by introducing an electronic system for submitting export and import documents.

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