Changes to import/export regulations and industry coming? The Trade and Industry Ministry will look to amending Egypt’s import/export strategy “to serve the development of domestic manufacturing,” Minister Amr Nassar said at a presser on Monday, Amwal Al Ghad reports. The ministry is currently developing a new foreign trade strategy that seeks to maximize the value of our industry, he added without revealing what these changes might be. Nassar had said last month that the government is currently looking to ban exports of raw materials in order to maximize their use in the value chains here at home. Raw materials which have not undergone any type of processing will not be exported

Is crowding out the private sector the go-to gov’t strategy for developing industry? The ministry will increase its reliance on Armed Forces factories to manufacture products needed here without having to import them, Nassar said, according to a ministry statement. His statements suggest a policy of restricting imports on those goods which can be produced by the Armed Forces.