Egypt named Lazard Financial Advisory to head Egypt's upcoming economic conference, set to be held next year in Sharm al-Sheikh, along with HAVAS Company to arrange the conference’s business and logistics.
Lazard, the world's leading financial advisory and asset management firm, advises on mergers, acquisitions, restructuring, capital structure and strategy, while Havas operates as an advertising and communications services company in France.
The minister of investments, Ashraf Salman, said recently that six projects in different fields will be ready to be presented in the conference, in addition to other 27 projects under study to be offered in the conference.
"The government is presumably allowing more time to prepare a well-thought project list, which is reportedly targeting US$70 billion in investments in a wide range of sectors, including electricity, roads, water and sanitation, communication and energy," said Mohammad Abu Basha, economist at EFG-Hermes.
Meanwhile, the Cabinet expects the private sector investment to rise to 15 percent of GDP before the end of FY 2017/18, according to the government medium-term macroeconomic policy framework for FY 2014/15 – FY 2018/19.
According to the Finance Ministry, net foreign direct investments has increased by 9.8 percent, recording a net inflow of $4.1 billion (1.44 percent of GDP) during the fiscal year of 2013/14, compared to $3.8 billion (1.38 percent of GDP) last year.
