Finance Minister’s decision to release some backed-up goods from ports is temporary

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Thursday - 1 September 2022

Amr Al-Samdouni — Secretary of the International Transportation and Logistics Services Division at the Cairo Chamber of Commerce — revealed that the decisions of Minister of Finance Mohamed Maait and the facilitations that he granted to importers are temporary.

Al-Samdouni explained that these decisions facilitate for goods currently stored in Egyptian ports, which is a temporary reflection on the market, as it will actually cause a boom in the volume of goods and contribute to cut prices, but it is a temporary decrease.

“We are waiting for an answer to our questions regarding goods that will be imported in the future and whether facilities will be granted to them or not,” he added.

Furthermore, he elaborated that the decision has not had clear effects on the market given that that country is suffer from many problems, including dealing with documentary credits despite the President’s decision to exclude some production requirements from dealing with them. However, banks are still refusing to deal with importers in dollars.

It is not possible to make dollar transfers except through export proceeds, he noted, pointing out that documentary credits are still the main obstacle behind the scarcity of about 60% of the commodities in the local market.

He further added that importers cannot open documentary credits in banks and that there are queues of investors and importers waiting to get them issued by the Ministry of Finance and the Egyptian Customs Authority to release their imports from customs.

“We demand that indicative lists of the goods that are eligible for import in light of the dollar crisis facing the country, or that the documentary credits issue be dealt with,” he stated.