Ministry explains decision to scrap former Trade Minister Nassar’s car assembly policy: Trade and Industry Minister Amr Nassar’s decision to scrap of former minister Tarek Kabil’s policy to increase the percentage of local content in domestically assembled cars is meant to give assemblers breathing room until a new set of sector incentives take hold, the ministry said in a statement (pdf). The new requirements would have been difficult for many assemblers to meet, and their suspension will provide them an opportunity to make new investments before a revised policy is put in place.

New incentives: We noted yesterday that the government is set to introduce up to 100% in custom discounts on automotive components as part of a fresh bid to spur domestic manufacturing and assembly.

What the ministry is saying is: Let’s start with a clean slate. The Kabil policy was planned to come alongside a number of other regulations that never materialized. This made it necessary to review industry regulations and align them with where policy is headed, the statement reads.

A reference to the automotive directive? Nassar was quoted by the press late last year as saying “there’s nothing called the automotive directive in most countries.” The minister’s statement downplayed the now-forgone plan that would have given incentives to local assemblers to move further up the value chain into manufacturing in return for a measure of protection against EU, Moroccan and Turkish imports. The plan has been in the works by successive government for years, but ended up in the shredder. It was sharply opposed by Egypt’s EU trade partners in favor of the policy that is now coming into fruition.