• General Import Requirements:

Minister of Trade and Industry Decree no. 43/2016 concerning the rules governing the registration of the factories and companies eligible to export their products to the Arab Republic of Egypt, states by article 1 "A record shall be created at the General Organization for Export and Import Control (GOEIC) for the factories and companies, that owns trademarks, eligible to export products listed in the attached statement (attached to the decree) to the Arab Republic of Egypt. The imported products for trading purposes shall not be released unless they are produced in the registered factories, or imported from the companies that own the trademark, or the distribution centers, registered in this record….."

Article 2 of the same decree stipulated that one of the elements that shall be fulfilled is to provide "A certificate indicating that the factory or the company that owns the trademark, applies a quality control system issued from a recognized body certified by one of the accredited bodies from the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC) or the International Accreditation Forum (IAF) or an Egyptian or Foreign governmental entity approved by the competent Minister of Foreign Trade."

What's New:

The Minister of Trade and Industry issued Decree no. 195/2022 on 31 March 2022, which came into force on April 1^st, amending Decree no. 43/2016. The critical amendment is Article 3.5, in which the minister obliged the registered companies to update their documents within 30 days of the expiry of their validity period.

Accordingly, the competent Minister temporarily suspended 218 registrations due to the lack of updated quality certifications in conformance with the decrees. The most recent set of suspensions was included in Decree no. 534/2022.

Please note that the suspension only applies to the imported goods, not products that are manufactured in Egypt by the same producer.

• Special Requirements for certain Goods to be imported under special conditions:

The Executive Regulations to Import and Export Law no. 118/ 1975 governing the examination procedures and controls for imported and exported goods as issued by the Minister of Trade and Industry decision no. 770 of 2005, contains a list of "Goods to be imported under special conditions" in Annex 3 thereof.

This list was first updated by Ministerial Decree no. 991/2015, which added several new goods to the list of imported products requiring compliance with special conditions.  

What's New:

Ministerial decree no. 96/2022, which shall enter into force on 21 May 2022, removed some of those goods and added some new ones. Importers of relevant imported goods shall fulfill the legal requirements by this date; otherwise, their registration will be suspended.

If you are an importer, please give us the chance to advise you.