Egyptians living and working abroad transfer $19 billion

Deputy chief of union for Egyptians living and working abroad Mohamed al-Rayyan has revealed that money transfers by Egyptians overseas has reached $19billion.

At the meeting of the Human Resources Development Committee in Al-Shura Council, Al-Rayyan said that Egyptians started working in the trade of services, tourism and insurance in order to establish a ground for Egyptian companies abroad to cooperate with investors and other parties inside Egypt.

He affirmed that Egypt is able to cross the current economic deadlock as, according to statistics of the census department, there are seven million Egyptians abroad; the number could reach ten million if unregistered citizens were included. More than 80 per cent of them hold scientific qualifications.

Al-Rayyan said that there are about 950,000 experts and technicians among the Egyptian citizens living abroad. In addition, there are about 800,000 working in research and related facilities, including 27 university presidents in Canada alone.

The head of the Human Resources Development Committee Abdul-Azeem Mahmoud said: “Egypt’s interest is crucial for us and the rate of transferring foreign currency has sharply increased. This might replace the need for taking loans from abroad.”

Walaa Morsi, an Egyptian living overseas, said: “There should be a database for Egyptians abroad in order to understand the problems they face and to work on solving them.”

He also suggested a national project for Egyptians living in foreign countries, on which a large number of them could be involved, with the country having a part of its interests. He said that this would increase the transfer of foreign currency to Egypt.