Abstract:
This study provides an assessment of the status of maritime and related logistics services in Egypt in order to identify the impact of trade liberalization on this sector. Moreover, it attempts to identify the reasons behind the weak performance of some maritime and related logistics services, and provides some policy and regulatory suggestions to improve such services and enhance Egypt’s competitiveness. The study finds out that the maritime and related logistics services in Egypt suffer from a number of regulatory and policy pitfalls including overlapping jurisdictions between different authorities in ports, absence of separating ownership and regulation, heavy governmental control over pricing, domination of public sector in logistics services and lack of clear regulations. The study proposes a number of policy recommendations including the need for establishing an effective independent regulator for the maritime sector, fixing the pricing systems of logistics services while enhancing the financial autonomy of port authorities, accelerating automation procedures of ports, overcoming the scarcity and inconsistency of data, creating an efficient regulatory framework for multimodal operations, enhancing cooperation with international institutions, and promoting public-private partnerships.
