A long waited law is issued on the 7th of March 2017 to amend the Importers Register Law no. 121 of 1982. The amendment aims at reorganizing the importation business in Egypt, establishing a competitive and transparent market and kerbing the entry of ‘low quality’ commodities.<\/p>\n
The amending law is issued under number 7 for 2017 (\u201cAmending Law\u201d), and below are snapshots of the main changes the Amending Law came with:<\/p>\n
The ancient requirement that an importation company must be 100% by Egyptian nationals is mitigated by decreasing such percentage to 51%. This will apply to both Limited Liability as well as Joint Stock companies.<\/p>\n
A draft of the Amending Law was circulated for sociological discussion in August 2016 suggesting the complete removal of the foreign ownership restriction to encourage prudent investors to inject money in the importation sector without restrictions related to their nationality.\u00a0This suggestion was strongly opposed by local importers who seems to succeed in convincing the legislator to make such partial liberalization by allowing only 49% foreign ownership.<\/p>\n
The Amending Law removed the provision prohibiting registered importers from entering into arrangements with non-Egyptians to import on their behalf and removed the related criminal liability. This may be interpreted as an indication that a registered importer can now act as a vehicle for importation on behalf of non-Egyptians.<\/p>\n
The requirement for the importation company to have an Egyptian manager is reconfirmed with the addition that the manager has to successfully pass the training courses to be determined under the executive regulation.<\/p>\n
The minimum capital threshold required for an importation company is increased to as follows:<\/p>\n
A limited liability company must have a minimum paid up capital of EGP 2 Million.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
An importation company is required to deposit a cash insurance amount to be refunded upon expiry or termination of the importation license. Such insurance amount is increased to EGP 200,000.<\/p>\n
The Law imposes harsh penalties on violating importers. A penalty of imprisonment for a period not exceeding one year and\/or a fine of not less than EGP 50,000 and not to exceed EGP 1,000,000 shall be imposed on importers who commit any of the following:<\/p>\n
For importation companies, a senior executive may be punished by the same penalties if it is proven that such senior executive was aware of the violation and breached one of its duties in a way contributing to the occurrence of the violation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A long waited law is issued on the 7th of March 2017 to amend the Importers Register Law no. 121 of 1982. The amendment aims at reorganizing the importation business in Egypt, establishing a competitive and transparent market and kerbing the entry of ‘low quality’ commodities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n