Hossam Heiba, CEO of the General Authority for Investment and Free Zones (GAFI) in Egypt, confirmed that the government planned to build 6 new free zones in the coming year, two of which had already been approved. The free zones are export-oriented areas established by the Egyptian government, where enterprises with a product export ratio of 80% or above are qualified and therefore entitled to special incentives in terms of investment, taxation, and import and export. As of July 2024, there are 9 public free zones and 204 private free zones in Egypt, totaling 1,169 projects with a total investment of $13.8 billion which provide 201,000 direct jobs. The number of the enterprises running in existing free zones has reached 1,300, with the exports accounting for 22% of the country's total.