Industry rejoices as Parliament looks to reprice gas, cut real estate taxes for factories: The House of Representatives’ Industry Committee is reportedly looking into reviewing gas prices for industries and canceling real estate taxes imposed on factories, following requests and complaints from industry figures, Al Shorouk reports. Egypt’s manufacturing sector has been pushing for years to lower prices the government sells them. After receiving promises from the government to so, no such pledge had been fulfilled, with EGAS officials saying in August that the Ismail cabinet will unlikely follow through on the promise. As for cutting real estate taxes, the Federation of Egyptian Industries (FEI) had previously discussed the proposal with the Finance Ministry, and had received Trade and Industry Minister Tarek Kabil’s blessing, according to FEI head MP Mohamed Elsewedy. Other business figures lauded the proposed moves, saying they would be a “lifeline” for factories that are only operating at half of their production capacity due to the burden of production costs and fees.

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