OECD FDI Regulatory Restrictiveness Index — 2024: Egypt’s Statutory Investment-Openness Diagnostic
OECD FDI Regulatory Restrictiveness Index — 2024: Egypt’s Statutory Investment-Openness Diagnostic
A lower score denotes fewer formal restrictions; the index is not an official ranking and does not capture the full investment climate.
Reference year: 2024 | Release/update: 2025-10-09 | Issuer: OECD
Executive summary
- Egypt is included in the official 2024 observation, covering 104 economies in the acquired OECD response.
- The verified economy-wide score is 0.24837625; lower values indicate fewer statutory restrictions on foreign direct investment.
- The score edged down from 2023, consistent with modest further statutory liberalisation.
- The index measures formal legal restrictions, not implementation quality, administrative predictability, competition neutrality or the complete investment climate.
- ENCC therefore treats it as a reform diagnostic to be paired with investment outcomes, investor experience and sector-level evidence.
Release and methodology
| Field | Official evidence |
|---|---|
| Issuer | Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) |
| Reference year | 2024 |
| Release/update | 2025-10-09 |
| Coverage | 104 economies in the acquired official response |
| Egypt result | 0.24837625 on the 0=open to 1=closed scale |
| Official rank | Not published in the score dataset |
The index measures statutory restrictions across economic sectors and four policy categories: foreign-equity limits, screening or approval mechanisms, restrictions on key foreign personnel, and other operational restrictions. Revised OECD methodology; the update records selective liberalisation in Egypt related to desert-land ownership.
Egypt lens
The 2024 observation places Egypt at 0.24837625. This value should be read as the weighted intensity of formal restrictions recorded by OECD, not as a verdict on realised investment performance. The score edged down from 2023, consistent with modest further statutory liberalisation.
For policy use, the aggregate should be decomposed by sector and restriction category. Reform sequencing should prioritise barriers that materially affect contestability, technology transfer, export capacity and productivity spillovers, while retaining justified safeguards that are transparent, proportionate and reviewable.
Controlled time-series context
| Reference year | Egypt score | Economies | Comparison rule |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 0.117 | 85 | Legacy method; not comparable with 2021–2024 |
| 2021 | 0.2713825 | 104 | Revised methodology |
| 2022 | 0.2720575 | 104 | Revised methodology |
| 2023 | 0.2497825 | 104 | Revised methodology |
| 2024 | 0.24837625 | 104 | Revised methodology |
Competitiveness implications for Egypt
- Investment attraction: fewer unnecessary statutory barriers can widen the pool of eligible investors and projects.
- Competition and productivity: more contestable entry can strengthen incentives for innovation, managerial upgrading and supplier development.
- Sector policy: economy-wide reform should be complemented by sector-specific reviews that distinguish legitimate public-interest safeguards from avoidable restrictions.
- Regulatory governance: legal openness must be matched by predictable implementation, clear procedures, time-bound decisions and accessible appeal mechanisms.
ENCC policy priorities
| Priority | Lead and horizon | Monitoring indicator |
|---|---|---|
| Create a verified inventory linking every scored restriction to its legal basis, sector and responsible authority. | GAFI and sector regulators; 0–6 months | Share of scored measures with verified legal citation and owner |
| Review high-impact sector restrictions using competition, security, resilience and public-interest tests. | Cabinet economic group, GAFI and competition authority; 6–12 months | Restrictions reviewed, retained with rationale, amended or removed |
| Publish clear foreign-investment entry procedures and statutory service times. | Relevant regulators; 6–12 months | Median decision time and share resolved within service standard |
| Pair legal reform with outcome tracking. | GAFI, CAPMAS and CBE; ongoing | Greenfield FDI, reinvested earnings, export intensity, jobs and domestic supplier linkages |
Data limitations
FDIRRI captures discriminatory statutory restrictions. It does not fully measure administrative practice, informal barriers, licensing quality, macroeconomic stability, infrastructure, skills, taxation or investor protection. Composite scores do not establish causality. Historical observations can also be revised, so release and data vintages must be retained.