Ashraf Helal, head of the Electrical Appliances Division at the Cairo Chamber of Commerce, told Masrawy that the crisis in importing production requirements caused a shortage in the supply of electrical appliances in the market, as well as an increase in their prices.
Helal explained that Egypt imports more than 90% of production requirements, collects them and manufactures them locally to put the products on the market, while a small percentage imports finished products.
According to Hilal, the presidency’s directives regarding the exception of opening documentary credits from import operations last May led to an improvement in import operations after they stopped after the Central Bank’s decision to stop dealing with collection documents in all import operations, but shipments still take time to enter factories to start operations. New manufacturing.
And the Central Bank issued a decision last February, to stop dealing with collection documents in all import operations and to work with letters of credit instead, before presidential directives with the exception of production requirements and raw materials from opening letters of credit in banks before the import process last May.
Helal added that the import of production requirements has now become available to manufacturers and importers, but it takes some time to provide the currency in banks necessary for the import process, with other instructions from the Central Bank to prevent the acceptance of foreign currency from exchange companies.
And the banks approved new instructions last April to prevent the acceptance of foreign exchange resources of unknown origin, or those obtained from exchange companies, in import operations.
With importers and manufacturers waiting for the foreign currency needed to import the shipment from banks, this led to a shortage of electrical appliances in the market, in addition to an increase in their prices, according to Helal.
He agreed with Hilal in saying that Muhammad al-Muhandis, head of the Chamber of Engineering Industries at the Federation of Industries, said that the crisis in importing production requirements led to a shortage of some types of electrical appliances in the market.
The engineer added that what is currently in the market is a factory that has been in the hands of merchants and manufacturers for several months.
The engineer mentioned that factories currently produce electrical appliances according to the quantities they have of production requirements.
