Egyptian Regulatory Reform Activity
Regulatory Reform:
Building
Egypt’s Competitive Advantage
OECD/GfD Seminar
April 30th, 2008
Amman
What is a Good Regulatory System?
No ideal regulatory model, but….
Success as an open, innovative, competitive
economy requires a
low-cost, low-risk regulatory system
that also
reduces health, safety, and environmental
risks and protects other public interests
The OECD Agenda for Low-cost, Low-risk:
Tools of Regulatory Reform
I. Build a regulatory management system
–
–
Strategic medium-term regulatory reform policy (5 years)
Engines of reform at the centre of government
II. Build the institutions to carry out good
regulation
–
–
Inspections reforms
Due process
III. Improve the quality of new regulations (flow)
–
–
–
RIA
Stakeholder consultation
Central quality checks
IV. Upgrade quality of existing regulations (stock)
–
Targeted deregulation, simplification, codification (Doing
Business)
–
Broad-based reforms - ERRADA
What is ERRADA?
 A demonstration of Egyptian perseverance in the
drive toward an open market economy.
 A rapid and transparent process for simplifying
Egypt’s regulatory regime to support economic
growth and competitiveness.
 Designed to rapidly count and review a large
number of regulations against agreed filters.
 Eliminates regulations not needed and simplify
regulations that are too complex.
Improving the Environment for Business in Egypt
Vision
Establish an effective environment for investments, through better
regulations.
Mission
Support the nation's economic reform efforts by establishing a system to
review and evaluate regulations with an aim of providing justice, efficiency,
competitiveness and more job opportunities.
Strategic Objectives
 Create an inventory of business regulations and an electronic database that
is accessible and clear.
 Evaluate the impact of business regulations to achieve better economic
welfare for Egyptians.
 Establish private and public institutional framework to review the impact of
business regulations to better confront competitive economic challenges.
 Fight corruption through establishing transparency and integrity.
 Increase local and international investments to create more job
opportunities.
Goals of the
Egyptian Regulatory Reform Initiative
(1) Inventory of Regulations – in each of the participating Ministries will be
created an inventory that encompasses all laws and subordinate
regulations / decrees that affect individual citizens and businesses;
(2) Review of Regulations – a review will be undertaken by a central
authority in consultation with each of the participating Ministries that
determines, on a specified date, the legality of the regulatory scope
(3) E-Registry – the electronic registry of all laws and regulations will be the
outcome of the combined inventory and review stages of this reform
initiative
(4) Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) – the overarching objective of
this reform initiative is the adoption by the GOE of the principles of
regulatory impact assessment as the foundation of economic governance
for Egypt.
Productive Sector Ministerial Group
ERRADA Regulatory Reform Initiative
TAPR II
Help Desk
Board of Trustees - General Review Unit
Functions
Executive Director
- Coordinates TA , training,
and equipment support
Quality check on Inventory
and Review Phases
Functions
- Facilitates program
management support t CRU
and GMUs
Monitors progress / builds
communications campaign
-Process Mgmt of Review
Deputy Dir.
Legal
-Maintain Central Database
-Coordinates w GMUs
-Report Recommendations to
NCRR
Inventory Phase / Ministry Database
GMU
Functions
Coordinates business
sector input to ERRADA
-Provides strategic advice on
ERRADA implementation
GMU
Business
Advisory
Council
GMU
GMU
GMU
Deputy Dir.
Economics
Inventory Phase / Ministry Database
GMU
GMU
GMU
GMU
GMU
GMU
GMU
Business Advisory Council
Business Advisory Council
Functions
•Coordinates business sector input to ERRADA
•Quality check on Inventory and Review phases of ERRADA
•Monitors progress / builds communications campaign
Inventory and First Self-review by Government
Management Units (GMUs) of participating Ministries
Ministries
Inspectorates
List of laws,
regulations
& norms
1st Review
Inventory: A key output is a complete
identification and mapping of all rules
under the scope of ERRADA.
All regulations are justified as meeting
the following criteria:
1)
Is it needed? If NO, eliminate.
2)
Is it legal? If NO, eliminate.
3)
Is it business friendly? If NO, simplify.
Second Review by
General Review Unit (GRU)
Ministries
Inspectorates
List of laws,
regulations
& norms
1st Review
2nd Review
1)
Is it needed?
2)
Is it legal?
3)
Is it business
friendly?
Third Review by Stakeholders
Who Report Their Views to the National Commission
Ministries
Inspectorates
List of laws,
regulations
& norms
1st Review
2nd Review
3rd Review
1)
Is it needed?
2)
Is it legal?
3)
Is it business
friendly?
The review group considers the advice of businesses and develops the final list
and legal amendments to create the electronic database.
GRU Prepares Package of Reforms for National
Commission: Decision Taken on Entire Package
Ministries
Inspectorates
List of laws,
regulations
& norms
ERRADA Cut
1st Review
2nd Review
3rd Review
Legal adoption
Secure Legal
Electronic Register
Public Access to Database via Internet
This process is repeated for all new regulatory requirements affecting business.
Implementation Strategies
Political Support Strategy


The Ministerial Group of the Productive Sector
sponsors the initiative
Participating Ministries are:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Trade and Industry
Agriculture
Local Development
Investment
Health and
Population
Tourism
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
Housing
Finance
Transport
Petroleum
Administrative
Development
12. Electricity
Implementation Strategies
 Communications and Consultation Strategy –
 Communications campaign to support ERRADA developed
by Egyptian professionals .
 Branding approach to tools such as the development of the
Regulatory Reform – Egypt website.
 ICT Strategy –
 At the core of the regulatory reform initiative.
 ICT hardware/software are combined as an enabling
networked service to enhance the stakeholders’ advocacy,
with a DMS and database communications systems.
Implementation Strategies
 Legal Strategy – crafting the ERRADA legal strategy to Egypt’s
existing legal procedures and protocols is vital to success.
Key areas of focus:
- Elaboration of a clear definition of “legality” for the review phase.
- Elaboration of legal analysis needed to determine if a regulatory revision can be
done at the Government/Minister/or Parliament;
- Development of method to package changes to laws and subordinate
regulations into separate packages during the review phase.
Implementation Strategies
 Management Support Strategy – resource deployment for
the sound management of the reform initiative.
The primary areas of focus will be:
-
Support the recruitment of Egyptian experts for the GMU and GRU teams
Design training activities for the Inventory and Review phases
Deployment of experts that support specific strategies of the initiative
Procurement of ICT equipment, TA, and training including study visits
Securing active support of private sector through the Business Advisory
Council (BAC)
Implementation Strategies
 Economic Impact and Monitoring Strategy – to build support for the
reform initiative includes:
-
Adaptation of the Standard Cost Model to quantify the cost-savings of the Egyptian reform
initiative;
Constructing through the BAC a matrix of indicators to monitor reduction of the regulatory burden
on businesses operating in Egypt
Soliciting BAC participants to monitor measurable change of the regulatory burden;
Disseminating progress in measuring the Egyptian indicators to regional and international norms
 RIA Development Strategy - GOE adopting the principles of regulatory
impact assessment and building a new basic law defining the role of
the state in the regulation of the business environment.
GMU Inventory Progress
Ministry of Finance
Initial inventory count reveals 8000+ decrees.
Ministry of Housing
Initial inventory showing 12000 published regulatory instruments
Ministry of Trade and Industry
Initial inventory showing 482 ministerial decrees
Ministry of Transport
Initial inventory count reveals 4904 decrees dating back to year 2000
Ministry of State for Administrative Development
9 laws reviewed. Currently collecting decrees.
GMU Inventory Progress
Ministry for Local Development
48 laws and in the process of collecting presidential and ministerial
decrees
Ministry of Petroleum
The premises established and collection of laws and regulations
started.
Ministry of Agriculture
31 laws to this date as well as ministerial decrees till 2007
Ministry of Investment
In the process of collecting laws and decrees
Ministry of Health
Initial inventory count reveals 2208 ministerial decrees from 1936-2007;
174 laws from 1941-2004; 41 presidential decrees from 1960 till 2004
Project Timeline
Project implementation Steps
Starts
Ends
Recruiting GMU experts
4 October
Ongoing
Allocation & Preparation of GMU Premises
4 October
30 April
Allocation & Preparation of GRU Premises
4 October
30 April
Procurement and installation of IT networks
8 December
30 April
Procurement and installation of operating
system
30 January
15 May
Website online
1 March
1 April
Identifying the members of the board of
directors and policy makers
1 March
15 May
Inventory training
17 February
31 May
Collecting regulations from Ministries-Inventory 15 May
15 August
Recruiting review experts at the GRU
1 June
30 June
Reviewing the laws and providing
Recommendations
1 July
15 December