Egypt's parliament approves law creating sovereign wealth fund

Egypt’s House of Representatives on Monday passed a law presented by the government to set up a sovereign wealth fund to manage state companies, Al-Ahram Arabic website reported.

According to the new law, the EGP 200 billion fund is named the Egypt Fund and will be headquartered in Cairo.

Finance Minister Mohamed Maeit said that the draft law was presented to parliament as an answer to the house’s request to use Egypt’s misused sources of wealth in the best way.

The speaker of parliament Ali Abdel Aal also stated that no sovereign wealth fund had ever failed and that sovereign wealth funds had two types, which one was for natural sources of wealth while the other was to attract investments.

“The idea of the sovereign wealth fund is well known across the world already,” he said.

According to Al-Ahram Arabic website, the fund will focus on fields like petrochemicals, mining, tourism and pharmaceutical industries.