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  • Wednesday, 18 May 2022

Minister of International Emphasizes Egypt’s Steps to Become a Startup Nation at Google Zeitgeist Summit

The Minister of International Cooperation, H.E. Dr. Rania A. Al-Mashat, participated in Google Zeitgeist summit’s session titled “An Equitable & Sustainable Economic Recovery”, which is organized by Google and was held in the United Kingdom, with the participation of high-level officials, decision-makers, entrepreneurs and CEOs.

The session included the participation of Roger Ferguson, former Vice Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, and was moderated by Dr. Linda Yeuh, Adjunct Professor of Economics at London Business School.

The Minister referred to Egypt’s steps to become a start-up nation, which is backed by strong policies and reforms that have allowed startups to be registered digitally to remove bureaucratic procedures and provide tax exemption. Egypt boasts of a number of start-up incubators such as Egypt Ventures, which has invested in over 150 companies in Egyptian growth stage startups and scale ups.

The Minister added that the Ministry of International Cooperation is forging resilient social contracts between the government, the private sector, international financial institutions and civil society, as well as non-profit institutions, in order to tap on the complementarities of each actor and ensure an inclusive multilateral system. 

She iterated that global tech giants like Google, Facebook, Microsoft are shaping the next wave of innovation in sustainable development by partnering with governments to support rising entrepreneurs and provide key digital skills for youth, such as the Maharat min Google program. 

As Egypt continues to move forward in the implementation of economic reforms, the private sector is looked at as a key development actor that drives sustainability and inclusive growth. The Government of Egypt recently announced ambitious measures to increase the private sector's contribution to the economy to reach 65% in the coming years. 

This also comes in light of Egypt's hosting of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27), which aims to mobilize private capital and propel private investment in more green hydrogen projects. Egypt recently launched the 2035 Integrated Sustainable Energy Strategy, which crafts a strategy that emphasizes the importance of renewable energy and plans to increase the supply of electricity generated from renewable sources to 20 percent by 2022 and 42 percent by 2035, with wind providing 14 percent, hydro power 2 percent, and solar 25 percent by 2035

The Minister referred to the importance of adopting a nexus approach to sustainable development in order to tackle the food crisis and build a sustainable food system to drive further investments in agriculture, backed by the National Water Resources Management Plan for 2037.