The required finance is the first criterion to choose the project that will be financed by Egypt’s debut sukuk issuance as it shall correspond to the volume of the issuance which ranges from US$ 200 million to US$ 300 million, said Ahmed El Naggar, adviser to the Minister of Finance and the one responsible for sukuk (Islamic bonds).
In addition, the project’s revenues shall be high to enable sukuk compete with other financing instruments and the social return of the project will be also taken into account, he continued.
Young investors will have the right to invest in sukuk as there will be local-currency sukuk. There will be also sukuk issued exclusively to foreign investors, he noted.
The government issues sukuk to attract foreign investments to the country and solve the savings shortage as the local savings rate reach 14%, while the global savings rates reach 35%.