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Reforms unlock gate

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WHEN a high-powered Egyptian Government delegation visited Hong Kong last year to learn about free enterprise, the ministers were decidedly impressed.

They admired the speed with which companies could set up shop; specifically, the hackneyed local adage that an enterprise could be established in a morning, operational by lunch and profitable by dinner.

The Egyptians are currently attempting to implement a massive privatisation programme of 314 public enterprises while at the same time wrestling with a monolithic bureaucracy of 5.3 million civil servants.

Whether Egypt is ready to embrace Hong Kong's famed (though sometimes mythical) laissez-faire system remains to be seen.

But there is no doubt that President Hosni Mubarak is determined to introduce drastic economic reforms during his third six-year term in office, which lasts until the end of 1998.

One item at the top of his agenda is to attract foreign investment. To do this, he is introducing a streamlined legislation which is more encouraging to foreigners than previous laws.

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