Background:

This is a press conference in the running – up to the third MENA conference in Cairo and the panel consists of  Mr. Blood from the World Economic Forum, Farīd Munīr of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Dr. Peter Goepfrich, -Executive Director of the Arab-German Chamber of Commerce.

Side A:

Mr. Blood of the World Economic Forum talks about the logistics of the conference and the types of sessions, that will take place, like a special workshop on SMEs, country lunches. There will be 50 sessions in total, entailing about 260 speakers, -260-odd companies were registered and they expected to reach about the number of participants as in past summits, meaning close to 1000 participants. Further, around 50-60 countries were expected to be represented on a ministerial level in addition to 30 international regional organizations. A new feature this year is an electronic messaging and database system to facilitate company matchmaking. Together with the government of Egypt there will also be 10-12 individual country business centers at the summit. Farīd Munīr, a councilor at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs adds that they sent out official invitations to 87 countries two weeks ago, including some African countries that did not participate in the previous conferences.

Dr. Peter Goepfrich, the Executive Director of the Arab-German Chamber of Commerce stresses that this conference is interesting for companies from all over the world, despite the recent developments which disturbed the Middle East peace process and its ensuing economic cooperation. The region is seen as a potential region for business and they expect about 60 German companies to attend the conference, a bigger number than that of the previous Amman conference, in addition to the country’s Minister of Economy. Further, most of the companies attending are multinational but a lot of small and medium-sized companies are also registered. The European commission and German-Arab chamber of commerce are organizing matchmaking with focus on European – Egyptian companies. When the chair opens for questions, we’re informed that 50-plus Israeli companies are registered to attend, compared to 75 at the Amman summit and 10-15 more than that again in the Casablanca summit. This is the same as the number of Jordanian companies and the same number as companies from North Africa. It is stated that Israel is part of what they define as the MENA and that, therefore they will be represented no more or less than other countries. It will be possible to register until a couple of days before the conference, as they have received some very companies at an excellent level at the very last moment before. Over 70 nationalities will be represented and the sectors that are most eager to participate cover infrastructure, transportation, energy, tourism, water resource management, environmental companies and engineering construction. On the question on threats to cancel the conference panel members say that nothing of the sort ever found place.

Reform processes that are going on in different MENA countries are highlighted, a panel member says that Egypt has done phenomenally well over the last 6-8 months. However, they expect that businessmen will communicate what they need in order to make the region an investor-friendly environment. On the question of Palestinian participation, they confirm that there will be a Palestinian participation and that they will present some projects and have country lunches in addition to there being  special sessions on the Palestinian economy and there are Palestinian businessmen registered. 

Side B:

The Casablanca summit launched the Middle East Development Bank, a regional business council and the MENTA travel association and these will all be discussed at the summit. Otherwise, a big study on Jordan Rift Valley was launched, with 340 projects that have been elaborated. The same holds for the South-East Mediterranean development, about nine projects that involve Israel, Palestine, and Egypt. There is also a similar one moving eastwards towards the Gulf of Aqaba. There are companies that will also be presenting projects, exemplified by Eni & Emaco looking at a gas pipeline. The articles of the bank have been more or less ratified and each country is coming up with the money. However, the bank would not be officially launched during the MENA conference because the American Congress still needed to pass some regulations. America would be one of the major shareholders of this bank and it was therefore decided to postpone it until after the US election. There were also some discussions among European countries whether to participate as original founders of this bank. On the question of the Egyptian people’s reactions to companies dealing with Israeli companies, the response is that there are many companies dealing with Israel and that they hope circumstances will improve.