Promoting Industrial Growth and Encouraging Foreign Direct Investment in Egypt
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National Food Safety Authority (NFSA)
Responsible Entities
Date 3/15/2021
Responsible Entities
Date 3/15/2021
Responsible Entities
Date 3/15/2021
Industry-Specific Reforms > Food Industry and Agriculture Products
- Non-compliance with good agricultural practices (GAP), including the requirements for a monitoring system and general quality standards.
- Irrigation water shortages, and its contamination with sewage in a number of areas.
- Problems of reclaimed land allocation and pricing.
- The lack of satellite images to assist in monitoring and regulating agricultural activities and the illegal construction on agricultural land.
Responsible Entities
Date 3/21/2019
Industry-Specific Reforms > Food Industry and Agriculture Products
- Carry out a comprehensive restructuring of the Ministry of Agriculture and its various agencies.
- Modify the agricultural policies and link them to the industrial and export policies and the findings and recommendations produced by agriculture research centers.
- Expedite the issuance of the new law to regulate the protection of biological resources.
- Review customs duties on raw materials, and facilitate import procedures by speeding the health inspection and customs clearance process for industrial inputs.
Responsible Entities
Date 3/21/2019
Responsible Entities
Date 3/21/2019
Industry-Specific Reforms > Food Industry and Agriculture Products
- Failure to implement a food safety system and non-adherence to international standards and specifications.
- Extensive use of inorganic pesticides.
Responsible Entities
Date 6/30/2020
Industry-Specific Reforms > Food Industry and Agriculture Products
- Impose dissuasive penalties on companies committing violations; penalties can include banning offenders from exporting for a certain period of time, in addition to imposing large financial penalties, and denying offenders access to export support.
- Introduce a farm coding system, and accredit farms to export and sell products in the local market.
- Expand the establishment of pesticide residue laboratories.
- Review and revamp the Ministry of Agriculture Seed Committee to improve its operational efficiency and responsiveness to the requirements related to seed exports.
Responsible Entities
Date 6/30/2020
Responsible Entities
Date 6/30/2020
Industry-Specific Reforms > Food Industry and Agriculture Products
- With regards to the customs release of meat and poultry shipments, Egypt has revoked the permits of 8 halal food companies operating in America. At the same time, it has approved only one company, which is permitted to operate in specific geographic areas. Furthermore, the company has neither the experience with halal food products nor any established contact with Islamic institutions that supervise and certify the halal slaughtering process. This same action was taken with regard to meat and poultry imports from South America, particularly Brazil. Such practices hinder trade flows and contrast with the situation in Saudi Arabia and Indonesia, which have in place clear regulations and standards governing the importation of halal meat.
Responsible Entities
Date 6/30/2020
Industry-Specific Reforms > Food Industry and Agriculture Products
- In consultation with the private sector and the Chamber of Food Industries, develop a mechanism with clear criteria for approving and revoking permits.
Responsible Entities
Date 6/30/2020
Responsible Entities
Date 6/30/2020
Responsible Entities
Date 3/15/2021
Responsible Entities
Date 3/15/2021
Responsible Entities
Date 3/15/2021
Responsible Entities
Date 9/26/2022
Responsible Entities
Date 9/26/2022
Responsible Entities
Date 9/26/2022
Industry-Specific Reforms > Food Safety
- The National Food Safety Authority (NFSA) has a number of weak spots, particularly with regards to its independence and effectiveness; there is jurisdictional overlap between NFSA and other agencies.
Industry-Specific Reforms > Food Safety
- Activate the role of NFSA, and enable it to exercise the authorities vested in it by law; prevent other government entities from interfering in its operations.
- Expedite the issuance of the executive regulations of the Food Safety Law.
- The Board of Trustees of NFSA should coordinate all food safety efforts, and clearly define the roles and responsibilities of the different bodies concerned during the transitional period in order to ensure complementarity.
Industry-Specific Reforms > Food Safety
- On February 18, 2019, the Executive Regulations of Law No.1 of 2017 establishing the National Food Safety Authority were issued.
Responsible Entities
Date 3/21/2019
Industry-Specific Reforms > Food Safety
- Expedite the issuance of the unified law to replace all other existing relevant laws.
Responsible Entities
Date 3/21/2019
Responsible Entities
Date 3/21/2019
Industry-Specific Reforms > Food Safety
- The lack of human resources within NFSA to effectively and efficiently carry out their functions and adopt new work mechanisms that are in line with international food safety control systems. Under the pretext of an increasingly bloated bureaucracy, competent authorities continue to deny the requests of the newly- established NFSA to recruit or contract with qualified individuals with diversified expertise to assist in meeting its mandate. Additionally, lack of awareness and appreciation of the important role to be played by NFSA is further aggravating the situation; competent authorities are requested NFSA to shrink its already-approved organizational structure, which is necessary for implementing the type of integrated activities and mission NFSA aims to achieve. So far, NFSA did not receive the necessary approvals from the Central Agency for Organization and Administration regarding the staffing table and job descriptions, at the same time, in an effort to undermine NFSA, agencies that were assigned the oversight functions prior to its establishment either refuse to second their employees to it, or prevent them from joining its ranks.
- All powers and prerogatives granted to NFSA under Law No. 1 of 2017, are ignored; it is treated like any other public agency with regards to public expenditure rationalization. Thus, NFSA is not able to secure the needed resources, such as vehicles, for its staff to carry out food safety inspections of food establishments. More generally, the lack of an adequate budget is impeding NFSA for fulfilling its expansive and important mandate, entails ensuring the food safety for millions of Egyptians, including vulnerable groups such as children, the elderly, the sick, and others; the work of NAFS also safeguards investments in two major revenue-generating sectors: the food processing sector, one of the leading sectors in terms of exports, as well as the tourism sector by ensuring the provision of safe and hygienic food in tourist facilities, being one of the most critical success factors in tourism.
Responsible Entities
Date 2/2/2020
Industry-Specific Reforms > Food Safety
- Allocate sufficient resources to NFSA to attract qualified professionals, and provide professional development training to its staff.
- Provide NAFS with a realistic budget allocation commensurate with its expansive responsibilities and functions to allow it to carry out its mandate in an effective manner (e.g., procure vehicles needed for carrying out actual food safety inspection nationwide).
Responsible Entities
Date 2/2/2020
Responsible Entities
Date 2/2/2020