PANEL REPORT- Egypt is open for business. That was the main message AmCham members delivered to a US audience at a panel discussion last week before a US audience led by AmCham President Tarek Tawfik, who was joined by CIB CEO for Consumer Banking Ahmed Issa, Ahead of the Curve CEO Dina Sherif, and Procter & Gamble’s Tamer Younes. You can read our full report on the highlights of the discussion here on our website. Among the key takeaways:

• Egypt’s currency shortage “has been settled once and for all.” Liquidity in the banking system is driving foreign investors to the interbank market for their FX needs, rather than using the central bank’s parallel repatriation system.
• The EGP float has made Egypt competitive as a regional export hub for multinationals.
• There is a lot of dry powder in the banking system to fund the next wave of growth, with deposits in the sector close to EGP 3 tn (almost 100% of GDP).
• The central bank will drive the adoption of IFRS 9 later this year, a “safe” and “conservative” accounting standard that minimizes balance sheet risk.
• Egypt will have doubled its electricity production capacity by the end of 2018 to 50,000 MW to create a surplus
• Industrial growth rebounded during 2017, and so did exports and FDI, thanks in large part to reform efforts
• The phaseout of subsidies has nearly tripled industrial energy bills and is pushing industry to become more cost-efficient. Recycling waste, energy efficiency and recycling water are all now on the menu

Entrepreneurship and innovation are in overdrive and the private sector is taking note, whether that’s Goldman Sachs’ 10,000 Women initiative or CIB’s fintech accelerator at AUC.

• It’s now time for a second wave of reform that digs deeper on an industry-specific level—and that tackles the bureaucracy.

Read our full report on the panel here.