Egypt’s billionaire Naguib Sawiris defends brother’s decision to relocate investments to Saudi Arabia

Egyptian billionaire and renowned businessman, Naguib Sawiris has defended the decision of his brother, Samih, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Orascom Development Holding Company, to suspend all investment activities in Egypt and relocate to Saudi Arabia.

“People should not assume bad faith in a family or in a person or individual like Samih or myself when we say something, (..) Today, many investors are afraid to come [to Egypt] because they do not know what the US dollar price will be tomorrow,” Naguib said in a telephone interview with Al-Hadath Al-Youm TV channel, which he posted on his Twitter page.

Naguib said there was nothing wrong with what his brother had said about investment in Egypt, adding “from our experience and our conversations with other investors, and when we come to prepare new feasibility studies, we have an element that we cannot put in the equation, which is the price of the US dollar.” “We are a family that loves the country, Egypt, more than ourselves,” he added.

Earlier, Samih has sparked controversy for criticising the deteriorating economic conditions in Egypt and announcing his decision to invest outside the country.

This came in an interview with the Saudi Al-Arabiya TV channel, in which Samih announced that he would not enter into any new projects in Egypt, adding that the future lies in investing in Saudi Arabia which offers more than an industrial city similar to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

READ: Israel plans to increase gas exports to Egypt