Supply commodity subsidy remains unscathed, Energy subsidy gradually dealt

Dr. Ahmed Galal, Minister of Finance asserted keenness on developing and completely automating work in the revenue departments, and mainly on improving the conditions of their staff and the environment of work to affect supporting the economic growth and realizing further transparency as well as better service to citizens for being the main concern of the government and the main target of any policy adopted.

 The ministry of Finance is implementing plans with the concerned ministries - such as Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Civil Aviation - to build up a system of work efficient and capable of exchanging data and information to keep a tight grip on different customs ports to protect national security and public fund and mainly to improve the services rendered to citizens.

 The Minister indicated important plans to expand the set up of advanced logistic centres and to activate the standing 19 centres over the republic particularly centres of Cairo International Airport to ease matters to the trade community , in addition to supply the technological mechanisms to all customs ports , especially sophisticated x-ray inspection systems and electronic connectivity of the customs ports network to minimize the time of release of goods imported or exported to the international standards. This can be reflected on the prices of goods and products and consequently on consumer.

The Minster’s release came on the sidelines of his touring visit to Cairo International Airport with Minister of Civil Aviation, Major General Abdul Aziz Fadhel, as they toured the cool storage warehouse serving Egyptian agricultural exports and food products and cargo village.

The Minister agreed with the Minister of Civil Aviation to speed up completing a number of vital projects at Cairo International Airport stumbling now for some problems.

The minister said that his field tour in the cool storage warehouse  and cargo village and his meeting with customs staff, brokers and the public was very important to identify problems in reality and promote trust among the different administrative levels at the ministry as direct meetings were better than reading formal reports to detect real problems; such as insufficient computer sets for employees at the customs port and the complaint from overstaffing in some shifts at the expense of others, in  addition to difficult transportation to the airport. The minister gave his directives for reconsidering shifts to address such problems.

The minister said other problems such as few appraisers and slow procedures for releasing imported cargos will be tackled at once, pointing out great efforts needed to develop the system, so the Ministry of Finance is seeking to make a paradigm shift in performance of these entities all the concerned parties feel with. 

The minister stressed the important cooperation standing between Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Civil Aviation to develop work at cargo village and logistics centers at the airport to release the Egyptian imports and exports , and the urgent need for completing plans to streamline procedures by depending more on up-to-date technologies to tighten control on ports for the security and health of citizen.

The ministry’s plans for customs focus on full use of x-ray inspection systems in all customs ports to tighten control on the customs release processes and facilitate procedures to prevent leakage of impermissible commodities and products into the country so as to protect the national industry from illegal competitions of smuggled goods and maintaining  the rights of the treasury in forms of duties and customs taxes.

The Minister of Finance underlined the important trilateral cooperation between Finance and Interior ministries represented in the Customs Department and Civil Aviation Ministry to develop work in Egyptian ports disclosing the set up of a joint committee including representatives of the three parties to hold periodical meetings to reach quick solutions for any problems. The Minister of Finance also emphasized performance-based incentives as being a kind of justice sought to prevail.

He said the project of developing the cargo village being carried out by Ministry of Aviation targets augmenting the air cargo share of Egypt’s international trade especially exports to contribute further competitiveness of Egyptian products abroad.

Replying to reporters’ questions, the Minister indicated decision to set prices of cigarettes came in the light of remarks by Tax Department on different purchase prices and exaggeration in some prices, so the decision came as a mechanism of control and to inform the customer with real prices. He pointed the important roles of the Finance Ministry to maintain and better channel public fund to serve development and realize social justice.

Regarding the package for stimulating economy, he asserted accelerating rates for implementing the projects of the package in the upcoming period to increase the growth rate of economy and improve public services.

On the cash subsidy, he pointed out that the government targets the approach of supporting families to ensure conveying subsidy to the deserving people, indicating subsidy of supply commodities to remain untouched. As for subsidy of energy, the Oil Minister has a plan to deal with the file of subsidy executed over some years with the current government’s commitment to execute its first step.

The Minister said tax rates now the society is bearing are not more than 15% of the Egypt’s GDP, among the lowest rates over the world. He emphasized a necessary community dialogue on taxation file for seeking the promotion of social justice.

Minister of Civil Aviation, Major General Abdul Aziz Fadhel, asserted keenness to support and develop the activity of air cargo to reach international levels, whose volume reaches now 90 million tons yearly while Egypt’s share reaches only 266 thousand tons despite all Egypt’s advantages of geographical site in the middle of the world and a main entrance to Africa and the Middle East.

The two ministries of Finance and Aviation are cooperating to redouble Egypt’s share of air cargo to 800 thousand tons yearly by 2020, with a big contribution by private sector cargo companies alongside with Egypt Air.

The two ministers asserted their keenness to solve any problems facing the Egyptian business community, quickly operate the logistics centre at Cairo International Airport and to complete the system of e-dealing and e-link of exports and imports movement.

The Minister’s IT advisor Atif El-Faqy disclosed cooperation with civil aviation authorities to complement the system of automated air cargo to ease the movement of Egypt international trade and conform with international standards to be applied globally in the coming period.
the two ministries will finish soon the project of developing the logistics centre at Cairo port, meanwhile there is a technical coordination between the two ministries to build up a complete network of information and communications at Cairo airport level to realize integration and connectivity among all bodies working in the airport and exchange of data among them for reducing costs on the Egyptian exports and imports.

He also stated the Ministry seeks to conclude programs of automating other revenue departments in 2014, adding, the Ministry welcomes any offers from companies working in the field of e-payment and collection to participate providing their services to people who deal with departments of the ministry for better services to the public.

He stated that customs inspectors in the cargo village, while inspecting manually, managed to seize a number of parcels owned by a foreign journalist, he intended shipping to Turkey, having photos of the Egyptian revolution and of torture , a camera and a projector, where impounded and referred to the prosecutor for investigation.