Egypt’s Central Bank

Cairo, (NNN-AGENCIES) : Egypt has issued a long-delayed investment law aimed at easing doing business and creating incentives to lure back investors after years of turmoil.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi ratified the law, which cuts bureaucracy, especially for new projects, on Thursday after parliament passed it last month, a decree published in the official gazette showed.

The new incentives include a 50 percent tax discount on investments made in underdeveloped areas, and government support for the cost of connecting utilities to new projects.

Under the law, investors can recoup half of what they pay to acquire land for industrial projects if production begins within two years.

It also restores private-sector free zones – areas exempt from taxes and customs – a policy that had held up the law’s passage because of objections to forfeiting tax revenues at a time of austerity.

Direct foreign investment jumped 39 percent in the first half of the fiscal year ending in June to $4.3 billion.

Egypt floated its pound currency in November and accepted a three-year $12 billion International Monetary Fund program tied to ambitious economic reforms, part of a bid to restore capital flows that dried up after a 2011 uprising drove away investors and tourists.

The central bank raised its key interest rates by 200 basis points on May 21 in an attempt to curb inflation of over 30 percent. It was the first rate hike since a 300 basis point increase in November.