Work normalizes at Egyptian QIZs

09 Mar '11

2 min read

After a month's closure following the country's uprising against former President Hosni Mubarak's regime, businesses in Egypt's Qualifying Industrial Zones (QIZs) have once again resumed work.

Egypt and Israel jointly set up five QIZs in Egypt, which actually serve as free-trade zones that facilitate duty free exports to the US without imposition of any ceiling, as long as these goods are made using at least 11.2 percent of Israeli raw material.

After disruption, the business in the factories in the Egyptian QIZs has almost normalized, an expert from the textile industry said.

The expert revealed that, many of the factories in the Egyptian QIZs were forced to halt their production for almost a month due to various reasons like closing of ports, blocking-off of the Suez Canal and interruptions in communications, which rendered export trade almost impossible.

Three of the five QIZs are located in the Cairo region, while one is in Port Said and one in Alexandria.

Israel has inked similar peace treaties with Jordan in 1994, and as such, QIZs have even been established in Jordan too.

Egyptians are in favour of carrying on this collaboration which upholds their competitiveness in the US. The expert said that, Egyptian businesses are in need of Israeli technology, while Israel benefits from the low-cost Egyptian labour.

Fibre2fashion News Desk - India

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