Schneider inks settlement on overdue export subsidies: Schneider Electric has signed an agreement with the government that should see it receive overdue export subsidies by the end of the year, President for North East Africa and the Levant Walid Sheta said, according to Masrawy. The agreement is expected to contribute to increasing the company's exports next year, Sheta added. Schneider is studying setting up a new factory in the Suez Canal area, which could take up to three years to be up and running, Sheta told the newspaper. This is possibly part of the agreement: Larger corporations are encouraged under the new export subsidy framework announced last July to commit to new investments to speed up their late payments.

The agreement is the second reported settlement after one with Sumitomo Tires announced last week. That’s when the government started implementing a new EGP 6 bn export subsidy framework and said it was taking steps to settle overdue payments promised by the Export Subsidy Fund under an old program. Under an agreement reached with exporters in May, settling companies will receive their arrears through either writing off the overdue amounts against their taxes or applying for industrial land at a discount through the government’s new online land allocation portal.

The arrears have accumulated since 2011 to reach EGP 25 bn,Finance Minister Mohamed Maait said yesterday at the Future of Investment in Egypt conference, according to Amwal Al Ghad. This is the first official statement about the size of the expected settlements, and is more than double the Egyptian Businessmen Association’s rough estimate of EGP 9 bn that was reported last year.