The views expressed in this paper are those of the author(s) only, and the presence of them,
or of links to them, on the IMF website does not imply that the IMF, its Executive Board, or
its management endorses or shares the views expressed in the paper.
Mr. Andrew Stone
Senior Private Sector Development Specialist
World Bank
Establishing a Successful One Stop Shop: The case of Egypt
Presented at
IMF/AMF High-Level Seminar on
Institutions and Economic Growth in the Arab Countries
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
December 19-20, 2006
The Case of the Cairo One-Stop Shop (A)1
Dr. Ziad Bahaa El-Din sat at his desk and reflected. Writing about reform and advising
on reform had helped prepare him, but now he had to not only create a plan for reform,
but implement it. As the new Chairman of the General Authority on Investment and Free
Zones (GAFI) he had been asked to create a modern one-stop shop in Cairo, the
economic heart of the Egyptian economy.
He had to take Egypt’s complex registration and licensing procedures and render them
simple for investors – turning hundreds of steps and dozens of agencies into a single stop.
He had to take an unproductive, process-oriented and sometimes corrupt bureaucracy and
turn it into a customer-oriented, results-oriented, high integrity and high productivity
team.
He had to contend take on traditional ways of doing things (some joked “since the time of
the Pharaohs”) and revolutionize them.
He had to overcome vested interests ranging from comfortable lawyers who earned hefty
fees navigating the complex business start-up process to notaries who, ensconced in their
comfortable offices, enjoyed a reliable income from their monopoly rights in legally
certifying documents and signatures.
And he had to act fast and show results.
On the one hand, reforms were profoundly threatening to a variety of established
politicians, bureaucrats and businesses. On the other, the Government was under