Egypt must revise trade agreements, extraction industry concessions: Experts

Egypt needs to revise its bilateral trade agreements and contracts with foreign extraction firms in order to restore policy freedom and maximise state revenue, experts said at the launch of the 2014 Trade and Development Report of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development on Wednesday.

The report explains that bilateral and regional free trade agreements are increasingly putting governments at the mercy of international tribunals capable of adjucating on investment disputes which are biased towards investors.

Such agreements also put restrictions on governments' freedom to adopt new policies, while not being obviously effective in attracting foreign direct investment (FDI), says the UNCTAD.

"When most such agreements were being concluded in the 1990s, any loss of policy space was seen as a small price to pay for an expected increase in FDI inflows," the statement said, adding that "this perception began to change in the early 2000s, as it became apparent that investment rules could obstruct a wide range of public policies, including those aimed at improving the impact of FDI on the economy."

Egypt has over a 100 bilateral investment agreements with different nations, said Mahmoud El-Khafif, UNCTAD Coordinator of the Division on Globalisation and Development Strategies.