The economic minds of Sisi's Cabinet

The new Cabinet with fourteen new members was sworn in today at 7am, two weeks after the inauguration of Egypt’s new president AbdelFattah ElSisi.

Besides annulling the Ministry of Information, which was responsible for regulating the media, Mehleb undid a merger he had initiated earlier this year by separating the Ministry of Investment from the Ministry of Industry and Trade. The three ministries had been combined under Minister Mounir Fakhry Abdel Nour, who had headed the Ministry of Tourism after the January 2011 revolution.

With ten new ministers, the new Cabinet welcomes a new Minister of Investment, namely Ashraf Salman. Salman is the CEO and co-founder of the Cairo Financial Holding, which was recently appointed to manage the $1 bln Papyrus Tourism Private Equity Fund – an initiative by the Ministry of Tourism to help companies in the said sector. The investment bank has as an authorized capital of LE500 million and a paid-in capital of LE240 million.

Salman formerly served as the Head of the Corporate Finance & Investment Banking Division at Arab African International Bank-Egypt (AAIB). With an MBA from Birmingham University and Diplomas in Capital Markets from the New York Institute of Finance, Salman’s experience in the financial market surpasses 20 years, in which he had been part of several high-ranking financial institutions.

“A member of the Management Development Centre for Industry, Salman was one of the architects of Egypt's privatisation program under the Mubarak regime in the 1990s, taking part in the restructurings and valuations of public and private companies,” according to Ahram Online.

However, the face of the Ministry of Finance stays unchanged, with Hany Kadry Dimian remaining in office.

A key figure in the negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a $4.8 billion loan during the era of Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated former president Mohamed Morsi, Dimian resigned from his 7-month-post of being the First Deputy Finance Minister in April 2013. This post followed a five-year-position as the Deputy Minister of Finance.

Being a part of the ministry since the early 1990s, Dimian originally graduated with a Master’s degree in international affairs and economic policy engagement from Columbia University in New York, after gaining a Bachelor degree in Accounting from Helwan University in 1988.

He initiated a modernization and reorganization process in the Ministry itself, by – in his own words – “promoting fiscal transparency, drafting a modern Income Tax code, efforts to improve sales tax buoyancy, and energy subsidies reforms.”

Dimian was also the Finance Deputy at the African Union and the UN Economic Commission for Africa, besides being the co-founder of MENA-SBO, the Senior Budget Officials network in the MENA-region. Additionally, he was appointed the Chair of Deputies for the International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC) of the IMF and designated as its Deputy at the G20, and is a board member of several authorities for fiscal regulation and management.

The thirteen other new ministers are:

1. Minister of Transport – Hany Dahy

2. Minister of Environment – Khaled Fahmy

3. Minister of Foreign Affairs – Sameh Shoukry

4. Minister of Culture – Gaber Asfour

5. Minister of International Cooperation – Naglaa El-Ahwany

6. Minister of Justice – Mahfouz Saber

7. Minister of Higher Education – Sayed Abdel-Khalek

8. Minister of Transitional Justice – Ibrahim El-Henedy

9. Minister of Scientific Research – Sherif Hamad

10. Minister of Irrigation - Mohamed Moghazy

11. Minister of Antiquities - Mamdouh ElDomaty

12. Minister of Urban Development - Laila Iskandar

13. Minister of Agriculture - Adel ElBeltagy

Ministers that remained in their posts:

1. Minister of Tourism – Hisham Zaazou

2. Minister of Communication – Atef Helmy

3. Minister of Agriculture – Ayman Abu Hadid

4. Minister of Industry – Mounir Fakhry Abdel-Nour

5. Minister of Planning – Ashraf El-Araby

6. Minister of Petroleum – Sherif Ismail

7. Minister of Religious Endowments – Mokhtar Gomaa

8. Minister of Education – Mahmoud Abou El-Nasr

9. Minister of Sports and Youth – Khaled Abdel-Aziz

10. Minister of Military Production – Ibrahim Younis

11. Minister of Health – Adel El-Adawy

12. Minister of Housing – Mostafa Madbouly

13. Minister of Supply – Khaled Hanafy

14. Minister of Social Solidarity – Ghada Waly

15. Minister of Aviation – Mohamed Hossam Kamal

16. Minister of Local and Administrative Development – Adel Labib

17. Minister of Defence - Sedky Sobhy

18. Minister of Interior Affairs - Mohamed Ibrahim

19. Minister of Electricity - Mohamed Shaker

20. Minister of Manpower: Nahed Ashry