Al-Shater: We Back Investors with Legitimate Business

Al-Shater: We Back Investors with Legitimate Business

The "Egyptian Industrialists" society held its first conference, Saturday, at a hotel in Cairo, attended by heads of parliamentary committees of “Industry and Energy” and “Plan and Budget”, members of the Federation of Egyptian Industries, and a large number of Egyptian businessmen and investors.


During the conference, Khairat Al-Shater, Deputy Chairman of the Muslim Brotherhood, assured that the group and its political wing, the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) would not prevent any businessman or investor from making profits in Egypt, even if they made a trillion pounds, so long as they earn such profits through legitimate means, pay due taxes, and commit to social perspectives.

“Egypt’s intellectual and political elite are pre-occupied with matters that will lead to no action. This is an elaborate trap in which the media is being used to distract people with political matters and various rumors”, Al-Shater said in his speech opening.

Al-Shater stressed that the Nahda (Renaissance) Project proposed in the conference is not the Brotherhood’s alone, but all Egyptians’ project; and that it should be adopted by all the political players and all hues, denominations and ideological orientations of the Egyptian people.

Al-Shater asserted that the desired comprehensive rejuvenation requires a number of elements, the most essential of which is the presence of a political will to achieve it.  Al-Shater explained that this will was absent in Mubarak’s regime, as it is – mostly – also during the current transitional period.

He further called on all Egyptians to work towards building a political system with a true will to rebuild the country and realize the desired revitalization dream.

The second element Al-Shater referred to was agreement on a common vision for the renaissance path, adding that this vision should be based on two conditions:  maturity, i.e. agreement should be on the best vision proposed, and adoption, i.e. the vision should be widely adopted to facilitate its achievement with the required competency and desired speed.

Al-Shater cited as an example the absence of a vision regarding the possibility of Egypt’s contribution (through public and private sectors) in rebuilding Libya, a project worth 700 billion dollars.

Moreover, he explained, in the next five years, Libya will need more than 3 million workers and that Libya had recently signed an agreement with Tunisia to provide 300,000 workers and is currently negotiating with Yemen to provide a further million workers.

Al-Shater added that Egypt has done nothing in this direction, although Libya expressed its willingness to depend on more than a million Egyptian workers.