27,000 importers, 68,000 foreign companies registered with Egypt’s ACI system since October

Egypt’s finance minister said that 27,000 importers have since October registered with the National Single Window for Foreign Trade Facilitation “Nafeza”, a government online platform that covers 95 percent of imports and exports of the country.

Mohamed Maait made the remarks during a meeting Saturday with a group of Egyptian investors as well as industry and trade community representatives.

Nafeza is also meant to exchange all required information and documents among all parties that are involved in the foreign trade system in Egypt, providing mechanisms that facilitate foreign trade procedures, standardise invoices, apply a digitized payment system, unify the necessary forms for releasing goods, and develop performance monitoring indicators.

Maait noted that 68,000 foreign companies have registered with the Advanced Cargo Information (ACI) system since October, adding that 65,000 custom clearance certifications have been issued.

The ACI system, which came into effect as of 1 October 2021, provides public and private trade operators with holistic electronic cargo information prior to the arrival of shipments to the country of importation in order to facilitate processing and clearance.

The system was adopted under Egypt’s strategy of digital transformation, which is in line with Egypt’s 2030 Vision and its sustainable development goals agenda.

“Nafeza has contributed to saving $400 for every single cargo and helped decline the time of the cargos clearance through submitting the cargo’s documents to the online platform without a need to the paper documents, which easing the procedures of signing and approving them,” Maait explained.

He noted that the government has spent, so far, about EGP 5 billion to improve and automate the customs system as well as establishing the logistic centres in the customs points, which all have resulted in reducing the customs clearance time and decreasing the related fees with a bout EGP 22,000 for every single container of the cargo.

“ACI system has contributed to attaining the exported commodities’ prices stabilization in the domestic market,” Maait said.

During the meeting, head of the Egyptian Customs Authority (ECA) El-Shahat Gatory said that Nafeza and the ACI system are expected to be linked to the banking system within coming few days with the aim of streamlining the clearance procedures.

For his part, head of the Egyptian Federation of the Investors Societies Moharram Helal highlighted the role of the ACI in easing all cargos clearance related procedures, which contributes to creating an attractive investment environment and boosting the industry and local production.