Private sector innovation in Egypt (PSI) (completed)

Context

Despite a diversified base, Egypt’s industry is facing a structural innovation problem. Industrial private sector activities are not productive enough to create much-needed employment opportunities. Also, outdated industrial practices and a lack of innovation severely limit competitiveness and growth potential.

A main challenge to industrial innovation is the lack of managerial and technical skills. These are needed to innovate internal production processes and product quality to meet market standards in a competitive manner. Another limiting factor to industrial innovation driven by the private sector is the lack of access to adequate financing instruments.

Objective

The conditions for innovation in Egypt’s manufacturing sector have improved.

Approach

Private sector companies in Egypt’s industry need to become more innovative to be market competitive. To create a favourable environment for Egypt’s manufacturing sector, the project takes an integrated approach that combines elements of private sector and financial system development. Its activities include:

• promoting cooperation between government institutions and private sector actors to direct public development policies and strategies towards innovation promotion,
• enabling service providers to offer new and improved services for product and process innovations to manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs),
• qualifying supplier SMEs to respond better to market demand and improving cooperation between lead and supplier companies for more effective integration into national and international supply chains,
• raising awareness in Egypt’s financial sector of the concept of value chain financing and assisting financial institutions in developing adequate financial products for the manufacturing sector.

By improving the competitiveness of Egypt’s manufacturing sector, the project contributes to economic growth and employment creation dynamics as envisioned in the national development strategy Egypt’s Vision 2030.

Last update: June 2023