Governance of Transport Corridors in OIC Member States:
Challenges, Cases and Policy Lessons
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For Egypt, the area of focus for development of transport corridors is the Nile Valley rather than along
the Mediterranean coastline. This is because most of its international trade is with Europe, rather than
the region. Egypt does, however, understand and acknowledge the benefits of regional integration
(COMCEC, 2017).
Institutional Framework.
Egypt has established a national transport and trade facilitation committee (NTTFC) (COMCEC, 2017).
The coordinators of this committee come from the Ministry of Trade and Industry.86
The trucking sector is overseen by the General Authority for Roads, Bridges and Land Transport (Mena
Transition Fund, 2013).
There are four institutions (port authorities) that manage the ports of Egypt: Port Said Port Authority
(PA), Alexandria PA, Port Said PA, Damietta PA, and Red Sea PA. The overall supervision of these ports
and PA’s lies with the Maritime Transport Authority (Mena Transition Fund, 2013). The rail network
in Egypt is managed by Egyptian National Railways (ENR) (Mena Transition Fund, 2013).
There are many different players involved in Egyptian trade and transport facilitation, also from the
private sector, although plans to strengthen the influence of this sector by Egypt’s government imply
that the private sector’s influence could (and should) be greater. In the trucking sector for instance,
“no significant interest” has been shown by the private sector to invest, due to “weak legal framework”
and risk and uncertainty of the investment.
In a European Investment Bank Initiative from 2013 (the so called TRANSTRAC Initiative) there are a
few plans and suggestions to facilitate trade in Egypt. The general plan aims to “promote reduction of
trade and transport barriers along the priority trade corridors of the country and in related border
crossings.” Furthermore, Egypt is to establish an investment unit (with the Ministry of transport), set
up a staff, provide documents and procedures and come up with an action plan identifying “potential
projects”. A Project Management Unit is to be set up to oversee the implementation of the project. The
unit will be placed with the MoT, under the Minister’s Advisor. This unit will be responsible for:
“overall coordination of the project activities with the different ministries, entities and departments
involved in the project; monitoring and evaluation of indicators and overall progress; continuous
follow up and periodic reporting on progress; liaison and coordination with the EIB”. This project is
being implemented with the help, advice and funding frommany international institutions such as EIB,
EU, IMF, WB and others. The execution of the project will be a collaboration between the EIB and the
Egyptian government (Mena Transition Fund, 2013).
Infrastructure, Finance, Planning and Programming.
Maintenance and construction of Egypts road network is in the hands of The General Authority for
Roads, Bridges and Land Transport (Mena Transition Fund, 2013). Egypt has invested in reforms in
the customs-sector (Rouis & Tabor, 2013). Big investments have beenmade in recent years in Egyptian
ports. Investments came from public authorities and private operators (Mena Transition Fund, 2013).
As we have seen, the TRANSTRAC project mentioned earlier has financial donors. Even so they are
actively seeking investment partners. The Egyptian government aids this by designing “business
friendly policies” and considering public investments. Private-public partnerships are used, for
instance for improvement of the road network (Mena Transition Fund, 2013). The Oxford Business
Group mentions that the actions and plans of the Egyptian government have already fostered interest
from (foreign) investors.87
Corridor Performance Monitoring/Dissemination.
Within the TRANSTRAC project, the Egyptian Government will be responsible for monitoring and
dissemination of results. This will be handled by the Project Management Unit, under the Ministry of
Transport (Mena Transition Fund, 2013).
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