• Dr. Omran: Over the past five years, jumping 61 places on the “Protecting Minority Investors indicator” represents attractive factors for investing in the Egyptian capital market
• Dr. Omran: We have made progress on “the ease of getting credit indicator “by establishing and operating the Egyptian Collateral Registry (ECR)
Dr. Mohammed Omran – FRA’s Chairman presented the results of the World Bank Group’s Doing Business Report 2019. He emphasized that for the fifth year in a row, Egypt has made significant progress on the “Protecting Minority Investors indicator” where Egypt jumps 9 places and this indicates that Egypt is enhancing protection of minority investors. It is worth mentioning that the last action taken to protect small shareholders was amending listing and delisting rules on the Egyptian Stock Exchange. The said amendment will expand the base of voters to select BOD members and consequently this will allow small shareholders to access the Board of Directors and achieve active participation and contribution to the management of the company’s affairs.
FRA’s Chairman added that the Egyptian government achieved progress on the “Protecting Minority Investors indicator” where Egypt has ranked the 72nd out of 190 countries jumping 9 places over the previous year and 61 places in the index since 2015. He noted that this progress has been achieved through decisions issued by FRA to increase the scope of disclosure and transparency and the efficiency of the regulatory framework for corporate governance and the protection of small shareholders. He added that this resulted in Egypt obtaining 9 out of 10 points on the corporate transparency index and 8 out of 10 on the Sub-index of “scope of disclosure”.
Dr. Omran expressed his optimism that Egypt was ranked the 60th out of the 190 countries on “the ease of getting credit” indicator up from 90 places in the previous year. He asserted that this tangible boom was due to the efforts exerted by FRA and the Central Bank of Egypt. In addition, he pointed out that the issuance of Movable Guarantees Law No. 115 of 2015 and its executive regulations and the establishment of the Egyptian Collateral Registry (ECR) by the Egyptian Credit Bureau (I-SCORE) and its operation on March 11, 2018 achieve the goal of Movable Guarantees Law. He emphasized that the said law creates an effective structure and system to facilitate the access of small and micro-enterprises to financing by guaranteeing collaterals without transferring their possession, and extending the scope of movables that may be provided as collateral for obtaining financing to include tangible movables such as machinery, equipment, goods, receivables, inventory and livestock, intangible movables such as innovations and copyrights and future movables such as output of agricultural crops and output of production process. In addition, the Egyptian Collateral Registry (ECR) is publicizing declarations and liquidation provisions.
FRA’s Chairman pointed out that progress in these two indicators has contributed significantly to the progress of Egypt’s general ranking by 8 places to be ranked 120 out of 190 countries. He pointed out that the progress achieved by Egypt in the Doing Business Report is the result of cooperation between competent Ministries and concerned authorities in Egypt as well as the success of the team who is responsible for communicating with the World Bank staff.
The Doing Business Report is one of the most important international reports issued by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank. The report monitors 10 key indicators that measure the number of procedures, time and cost of the company’s activities from establishment to building permits, access to electricity, registration of property, access to credit, protection of minority investors, taxes payment, cross-border trade, and insolvency. The report monitors and evaluates these indicators in 190 countries after classification and ranking.
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