Egypt: Environment Minister Dr Yasmine Fouad reviews efforts to develop sector
Egypt: Environment Minister Dr Yasmine Fouad reviews efforts to develop sector

Egypt: The Presidency of the Egyptian Council of Ministers has shared the update regarding the recent cabinet meeting, which reviews the ministry’s efforts to push the investment wheel and develop the environmental sector.

During the cabinet meeting, chaired by Dr Mustafa Madbouli, Environment Minister Dr Yasmine Fouad reviewed the efforts as well as measures taken by the ministry to push the investment wheel, in light of the presidential assignments, to develop the environmental sector and to work on breaking down various obstacles facing the implementation of environmental sector projects, and linking environmental sector development.

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In this context, the Minister of the Environment presented a number of measures taken on top of the facilities for obtaining environmental approvals and outlined the application of a number of new rules to facilitate obtaining such approvals for industrial projects, including the electronic linkage between the Environmental Affairs Department and the General Industrial Development Authority, for the easy and speedy circulation of studies and documents By the time they returned from the Authority, two researchers from the ministry were assigned to be at the headquarters of the General Authority for Industrial Development to review environmental studies and complete their data for submission up to date to the Environmental Affairs Agency, which reflected on the results of the issuance of environmental permits within seven working days at most instead of the 30 days based on it.

Regarding the facilities related to environmental approvals for tourism projects, Dr Yasmin Fouad discussed a number of new rules also included the approval of the permission for small projects, such as the maintenance of scaffolding and light facilities in the beach campus, without referring to the Supreme Committee for licensing, and the issuance of a guide for the construction of light facilities (easy dismantling and installation) in the beach campus area, and was approved from the Supreme Committee on Licensing, as well as the preparation of conditions regarding the possibility of creating temporary swimming places in the back zone of the beach campus area, and the preparation of requirements and standards for the decoration of the beach area and plateau, and the decision of the Supreme Committee on licensing those conditions.

As per the update, the minister said that the results of these actions had facilitated the documentary course of those projects, issuing environmental approvals without being presented to the Higher Committee for Licensing, as well as solving the problem of villages and resorts in the North Coast and allowing the establishment of safe swimming areas in the beach sanctuary area, as well as the solution of villages and tourist resorts in a coastal area with nature Topography on a plateau and not having shoreline access or beach area use.

The Minister of the Environment also touched on measures to facilitate environmental approvals for telecommunications projects (mobile booster stations), including the formation of a working group of representatives of several ministries specializing in environmental assessment procedures of power stations; in addition, there is the participation of the Environmental Affairs Department in the issue committee to review the position of mobile stations National Telecommunications Organization which holds weekly meetings to solve problems facing the establishment of stations.

The Minister of the Environment explained that, regarding the golden license, the ministry had prepared a guidance guide for the environmental requirements of various projects within the specified sectors for obtaining the golden license in order to identify the investor with those requirements for consideration during the implementation, and the Minister turned to the problem committee of the ministry to complete the data on environmental impact assessment studies on That committee should meet at least once a week, to summarize all environmental assessment studies that require data completion, and to speed up opinion on them.

The update also mentioned that the Minister also referred to amendments to the Executive Regulation of the Environment Law, which included the formation of a committee of technicians and experts from Egyptian universities to review the Executive Regulation Law, and the proposal of amendments to some texts of the Executive Regulation and their follow-up materials, which were approved by the Board of Directors of the Environmental Affairs System, including the addition of some items and specialities, as during the meeting, the Environment Ministry reviewed a number of recommendations in this regard.

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