Tolba says: QIZ is a stage won't last for ever and should make the most of it
Mr. Magdy Tolba "Head of RMG export council" has stressed that the QIZ agreement is no more than an important stage, which will not last forever and should make a maximum use of it.
Egytex News Desk
Egytex
He noted that according to the WTO agreement, member states are demanded to diminish their customs rates gradually reaching 0% at the final stage of applying this agreement. Therefore, the QIZ benefits will not last for so long.
Mr.Tolba added that the QIZ agreement has significantly helped in increasing Egyptian apparel exports. However, he remarked on the negative aspect of depending on the Israeli raw material as stipulated in the agreement, while it's not growing the same rate the Egyptian apparel exports do.
Mr. Tolba requested diminishing the contribution of Israeli components in raw material from 11.7% to 8% like Jordan who currently demanding to decrease this percentage to 5%.
He also added that Egypt will eventually find it self shifting to the European market in exporting its Apparel if the state of Israel didn't respond positively to our request.
It is worth noting that the Israeli raw materials are relatively high. However, its contribution to the final product price doesn't exceed 4% of the product's total price. This contribution relief the Egyptian apparel exports from any customs when entering the US market which is estimated between 17% to 36%. Therefore, the slight increase on the Israeli contribution of raw material will not notably affect on the export prices.
Mr. Tolba announced that the Egyptian RMG exports in the period 2006/2007 have recorded 744 million US dollars with an increase of 10 million US dollars comparing to the period 2005/2006.
From the Egytex news archive, first published on 2 September 2007. Figures and names are as reported at the time.
