A group of Saudi entrepreneurs have decided to set up an investment development bank in Egypt to launch investments, value of which is projected at 100 billion pounds, the Chairman of the Saudi Council of Chambers of Commerce and Industry said.

Sheikh Saleh Kamel told the Egyptian official news agency, the Middle East News Agency (MENA), the decision to establish the bank was within the framework of the brotherly ties bounding the kingdom with Egypt and intended to aid the nation during the current crisis.

The bank, to be based in Cairo, will offer jobs for a large number of Egyptians, thus helping in the efforts to cut unemployment and boost the national economy.

Elaborating, the senior Saudi entrepreneur said he had urged Saudi business quarters to examine means for supporting the Egyptians to cope with the economic hardships.

As to status of Saudi investments and interests, in shadow of the events, Kamel affirmed that Saudi or Saudi-funded companies in Egypt incurred only operational losses, and that the Saudi firms paid salaries and fulfilled financial liabilities as scheduled.

Meanwhile, Chairman of the Egyptian Businessmen Society Hussein Sabbour highly praised the Saudi initiative that coincided with comeback of some one million Egyptian workers from Libya, thus aggravating the local unemployment problem.

For his part, the head of the Saudi group in the Egyptian-Saudi Business Council, Dr. Abdullah Dahlan, affirmed that Egypt, despite the events, remained a top mecca for the Saudi investments.

Global Arab Network