Egypt Watch

Egypt’s parliament approves the Saudi Investment Fund’s acquisition of Egyptian state assets

Sunday, the House of Representatives approved an agreement signed by Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on March 30 with Saudi Arabia. The kingdom can own assets and acquire commercial entities in Egypt through the Saudi Investment Fund. The head of the Economic Committee of the House of Representatives, Ahmed Samir, did not review the full text of the agreement during the session. He only read out to the deputies the part on how the deal provides investments to Egypt.

The agreement allows the Saudi Investment Fund to be present in all investment fields available in Egypt by purchasing and owning real estate and assets, establishing commercial entities, participating or contributing with government entities or the private sector in various areas, and exploring, extracting and exploiting natural resources. The agreement also included not imposing restrictions on the collection and re-transfer of the capital’s principal, profits and depreciation. It stipulates the obligation of the two parties to maintain the confidentiality of the agreement information and to limit its use to the purposes for which they provided it. Neither of them may transfer or pass it on to a third party except after the other party’s written consent.

Representative of the Egyptian Democratic Party, Freddy El-Bayadi, warned of the non-productive nature of the agreement, saying: “We have to look for agreements that bring us economic benefit through productive activities. We do not want more consumeristic projects.”