 What's good to see is a lot of enthusiasm about the subject that people want to continue to speaking about it everywhere here in the room. Well, anyway, my name is Walter Douglas, and I'll be the moderator for this next hour. And we have a very distinguished panel here and really delighted that we can continue the discussion about a U.S.-Egypt free trade agreement with our panel. And perhaps here's some other views and some other, some depth that could add and complement to what we just heard earlier. Anyway, let me just give you a quick introduction here before we jump in. Phil English was a congressman from Pennsylvania and is now at Arnt Fox and the firm here in Washington. But one thing that's especially noteworthy about him is he was on the Ways and Means Committee and was very involved with trade agreements. And so he brings a lot of expertise about what's been going on in the hill and is very current with that. Hisham Fahme is from, we're lucky to have him here in from Cairo. He's the head of the executive director at the Amcham in Cairo. And really, as you look at his resume, has been devoted, he's at the spear point really of American business interests in Cairo and in Egypt and doing everything you can to increase them and to make sure it's a fantastic relationship. I would also note he's been in Cairo for quite a while. He studied at the American University in Cairo, which is truly one of the most distinguished universities in the Middle East and one of the most beautiful as well. And then we have Meredith Broadbent, who's here with CSIS. You heard her at the last session. But at any rate, she is the one who actually then authored and directed the report, which she'll have a chance to speak to you about. So first, I'd like to start with Phil English. I also would like to also compliment him. He made a very good choice where to go to university. He went to the University of Pennsylvania, as I did, and there was a perfect choice. So perhaps, Mr. English, you'd like to start off giving us a little overview of where we are. Thanks, Walter, and I appreciate the introduction. And I'm sure you made more of a splash at Penn than I did. I want to say it is a privilege to be here. I was grateful when Meredith contacted me because this is a topic of great interest to me over time. Also, right now our firm has very much focused on Egypt as one of the areas where there's going to be a remarkable opportunity. I have to tell you, I was for an Egyptian FTA before it was cool. I remember talking to Charlene Marchewski about this back in the late 1990s. At that point, there was a feeling they were not yet ready to proceed with reforms that would make an FTA work. So the negotiation never really took off. In the middle of the last decade, I was part of a delegation that went over to Egypt at a time when we were talking again about doing an FTA. And at that point, there was a real sense of the reform was in the air and there was real movement. That did not lead anywhere. I feel sometimes as an advocate of close integration with Egypt's economy, kind of like the lost army of King Cambyses. Some of you may remember the story, Cambyses overran Egypt, made it a province of Persia, and sent, well, basically heard there was out in the western desert somewhere, an oasis called Siwa where the Oracle of Amun was. So he was determined to control that oasis and he sent an army out into the western desert and he said, find it. And they marched out and a couple of days later, some folks came back and said, well, we haven't found it yet and it's really hot and we're in armor. And the Cambyses said keep looking and about a few days later, another delegation came back and said, you know, there's no water out here. And Cambyses said keep looking and they marched out and they disappeared. And by the way, modern archeologists are planning to use metal detection to see if they can find where the army went, but it never found Siwa. And I've long felt that maybe it would take a long time to work our way and find an FTA with Egypt. Right now I'm optimistic. Why? Because a number of things have changed. First and foremost, Egypt has gone through in the lead up to the current situation a series of market reforms that I think make us optimistic that we could integrate our economies. Market reforms in banking, market reforms in the tariff arena, market reforms in regulation. Second of all, the Arab Spring has, as people noted in the last panel, created an opportunity. I think it has also created an expectation of growth and change within the public. And a free trade agreement with the United States would be an enormous add on to that. So notwithstanding the fact that the nominal leaders in the first round of Egyptian elections were the Muslim Brotherhood who we don't normally associate as potential allies. They nevertheless have distinguished themselves from the Salafists and they are clearly interested in putting together a coalition in the center, whatever that center may be. We potentially could fill an enormous need for them. And this is coupled with the fact that Egypt is going through a substantial economic crisis, not only a long-term problem with a skills gap and with corruption, but with a large informal economy and very, very high unemployment. They need dramatic economic growth to turn that around. And on this side, the United States, I think, has achieved a major breakthrough and a decisive change in trade policy. The passage of the three FTAs shows that there is a new potential coalition in Congress to pass this kind of agreement. I would add not only is it a sign of support for free trade, but perhaps more importantly it's a sign that the traditional opponents of free trade were decimated in the 2010 election. And into this environment, coupled with the traditional bipartisan support in the Senate for FTAs, there is a great opportunity here. Let's recognize a free trade agreement with Egypt would have an important impact. Its immediate impact would be limited. It would certainly be a strategic asset. It would also be a modest economic asset. But over time, as Egypt changes and as Chairman Dreyer noted, it is at 85 million the largest country in the Arab world and a very important potential platform for us. We think that this is a partnership that would be potentially useful. We need an FTA to reinforce the reforms in Egypt. We need the FTA to anchor Egypt to the west. We need FTA to promote a demonstration effect to bring more partners in the region. And we need an FTA to counter trade diversion as a result of trade interactions with the EU. I think now is a time when this could work. And so it's a very exciting moment. I look forward to your questions. Thank you very much. I'll just run through a little bit of our thinking on the paper. You guys all have it. So there's things you can ask about if you want to drill down too much. But basically this paper is focused on how the United States might choose Egypt as a future free trade agreement partner. And I'm going to apologize to Egyptians in advance in one sense. This is more about how the United States is going to get there. We can kind of look at our situation now. We recognize that we've gotten rid of the pending FTAs. The decks are cleared. It's now really an appropriate time for the United States to start debating what the new trade strategy is. And I think we heard Chairman Brady say that yesterday in his trade agendas to gender speech. And the idea is that we need a new trade strategy that takes account of the new realities and a really fast changing global economy that has been transformed since the United States Congress last authorized negotiating objectives for trade agreements. In the past we've had the, for many years, we've had the Foreign Trade Barriers Report which tends to be USTR's Bible about what we want to get accomplished with each individual country. But I think at this point we've got to admit that we're not getting what we want from the big guys, from the India, Brazil and China's of the world. The plan there was to deal with them in the WTO and that really hasn't been working out. We're basically at an impasse and I think for the time being it's important for the United States to start looking at the next group of countries that are coming over the horizon of which we see Egypt as being one. There's a lot of different configurations of countries that you might look to but Egypt fits the bill in many, many respects and that's why we thought it was important to spend some resources and call it to your attention. The first cut of these arguments I think is interesting. I mean we sort of see what Egyptians are saying to the US. The last sort of official meeting that I see registered in the press at least is Ambassador Taylor who I think was here met with the trade minister from Egypt, Minister Issa in October. The trade minister there was saying that we need a new trade strategy between the United States and Egypt. Minister Issa said that it should focus on achieving joint interest for the two countries and it should be a program that was felt, a policy that was felt by the Egyptian nation. He said the time is right for the US to play a role in supporting the Egyptian economy in this transition phase. So I think the thing to keep in mind here is that as the new government gets organized in Egypt it is helpful to have the goal out there of an FTA. It's easy to say, United States shouldn't say something, we ought to hang back, be hesitant about what's happening until we see what the character of the new government is. They're not ready to do it, but the fact of the matter we're not ready to do it either. I mean if the Egyptians announced yesterday that they wanted to forge stronger trade ties with us and have a closer relationship it would be hard to imagine the US following through on that. So we have a lot of work here to do in the United States before we can speak collectively as the United States to Egyptians in a way that can be understood as a signal of support and sort of unified policy and approach to Egypt. On the commercial side there's a host of reasons why Egypt makes a lot of sense. One of the issues I think that is important to think about is sort of illustrative of the general negative progress the US has been making on trade agreements overall while other countries are moving ahead. The Europeans have enhanced their trade relationship with the Europeans. In fact they have a US-Egypt-EU association agreement that went into effect many years ago but it was enhanced in 2007 with some unilateral trade concessions on the part of Egypt. So most countries like the United States are giving trade preferences to Egypt, reducing barriers to them. Right now Egypt is actually accepting Egyptian products at duty-free tariffs and that is having a demonstrable effect on US market share particularly in the agriculture sector and the report goes into that. Another reason on the US competitiveness position with Europe is that the Europeans are in that market and having a big influence on the standard setting process in Egypt. It's a complex area but it has a strong impact on US companies and when the Europeans are there and able to offer a lot of assistance they have this agreement that says we ought to harmonize standards and get closer to what the European standards are that's negative for the United States. Egypt in fact may be for example not accepting US automobile standards in the future. Historically they've accepted both the European and the US automobile standards. As time goes on it sounds like and I think the statements they've been making are that they'll be switching to the European standards. So that's a practical negative competitive impact on the United States that European involvement in the Egyptian economy is promoting in their interest which is their prerogative but we ought to be there and be engaged at the same time. The third element related to the European competition is that the trade agreement that Europe has with Egypt gives them a lot of lines of communication into the Egyptian economy. When you've got a trade agreement in place you have an office that deals with those trade relations even through the very difficult political transition taking place in Egypt during July, August they were able to have high level meetings, they were able to have day-to-day trade meetings they were able to conduct business under their trade agreement which supports their traders. The United States I think has been hampered, we don't have a mechanism in place it's politically difficult to have a new type of meeting with the United States so we don't talk as often and as deeply as the Europeans and Egypt are able to do. We're a bit on the outside because we don't have the structure in place where the bureaucrats know what their job is, facilitate trade, take care of day-to-day barriers. So I think there are almost intangible benefits there to a trade agreement being in place. If we had had one that went in place earlier the democratic transition comes and I would argue we would be in a better place than we are commercially in Egypt right now. And I think the thing that others have really pointed out is the value of their forms that the Egyptians have undertaken leading up to this point before January 25th. I think the Egyptians deserve a lot of credit for their reform of their bureaucracy. They've done a lot of privatization and their economies was before January 25th and to some extent going forward with a lot of foreign investment and it's led to very strong growth rates, 7% annual growth rate between 2005 and 2008 and even during the global downturn in 2008 it fell to only 5%. So three or four times the growth rate that the United States has and something that the Egyptians need to think about preserving. What are the policies that they need to put in place that will attract investment, make investors secure and set the structure for a good business environment? And finally on the strategic side of negotiating with Egypt at a loss the director of our Middle East program is in Egypt right now, John Alterman and he would be able to give a good description here but just strategically overall Egypt is a very powerful state essentially the center of gravity for the Arab world. If Egypt descends in instability maybe other countries in the Arab region will do so. We need to be worried about this and we need to support sort of the good example from Egypt that comes from their professionals that really do play a leadership role in the overall MENA economy and have a lot of influence on sort of the future development in that region. So at some we need to really come up with a policy that has defined objectives if there are folks in the Egyptian government that want to grow and modernize and integrate into the global economy it is good to have the goal of a free trade agreement out there. We think that Egypt will be a key partner in the future. The performance of the economy will drive a lot of how the Egyptians approach the future and so we think that the time is right to start thinking about how we build these new avenues of interchange and cooperation that take place under a free trade agreement. It's an early time but Egyptians are looking to make choices and a free trade agreement really has by the nature of its effect on an economy moves an economy towards market oriented reforms and if the United States can see its way clear to have a forwardly deployed economic strategy in the region with just even saying the aspirational goal of a free trade agreement it would be I think a clearly understood gesture of goodwill and encouragement for Egyptians at a pretty uncertain time. So that's sort of the thrust of where we were going on the study. It's there for you to read and we really appreciate these two other speakers coming to talk about both how the United States is going to start looking at the question of U.S. relations with Egypt as well as I'd like to yield now to my colleague Hisham about how Egyptians are hearing what's going on in the United States and how we can have a positive impact. Good morning everybody. I'm so happy to hear that we're talking about free trade agreement with Egypt again. We've been talking about it. I've been talking about it when I had hair. And I really am absolutely happy that we are talking about it. Do we want an FDA U.S. Egypt? This is sort of not a role. We, there are several parts whom we are talking about and I think we're talking about U.S. government. We're talking U.S. companies. We're talking Egyptian companies and we're talking Egyptian government. Everything I had here has been said but let me look at it in a different way. I'm going to try to be a bit more argumentative just for the lively note of the place. I think for U.S. companies it's obvious. It's a win-win. As Meredith is saying the Europeans are eating our lunch in Egypt and expanding in other places in the Middle East and Mediterranean and we have to do something about it. And an FDA is one but it's a very good avenue to pursue that U.S. companies very shortly will be locked out of Egypt and other places. For Egyptian companies that are working with the United States or with U.S. companies it's a must. They're being shut out as well with their Europeans, counterparts and so on. Who wouldn't want an FDA with the largest economy in the world? It is a given and I think anybody who thinks about it or talks about it or knows about trade issues it's something that is needed. I think Congressman English put his finger on what he said about a catalyst for reform. I think this is one of the most important parts of what an FDA, not just an FDA that is concluded but an FDA that's negotiated as Thelma was saying, this will cement a lot of the reforms that we as business people, those who represent business people want to make sure are cemented into law in Egypt. And this is the time to really with the new constitution, with the new parliament, with the new government, this is the time to put the seed of what we really want Egypt to look like on the economic side, the free market side and so on. The revolution had a lot of extremely good effects but it also had parts that included people thinking of more populism, more socialism, more equality and so on. And we need to be aware of that. An FDA with the United States will send a signal to the whole world, particularly to the U.S. companies who are not in Egypt, not the Coca-Cola's or the big companies but the small and medium United States companies. It will give them a signal that Egypt is part of the global economy. There's a rule of law and I think that an FDA will do that. Investment rating for Egypt will definitely go up with an FDA with the United States and Egypt needs the FDI, needs all the help it can get. Increased competition for quality goods and I think Congressman Dreyer mentioned that. It opens up a huge market, the United States market, to Egyptian exports and that is not an impediment to anybody or argument anybody in Congress or the labor unions or anything. If the whole products GDP of Egypt is exported to the United States, it's not going to affect the United States one little bit. And if we're talking about the most sensitive part, it's the textiles that's already done through the QIZ. So there is no more products that really can have a big impact. And if the U.S. can have a free trade agreement with Mexico, Canada and Korea, I mean, I don't think you should be worried about Egyptian exports. So the pros for Egypt to have an FDA are never ending and they're just not debatable. FDA with the United States for Egypt is something that is positive and so on. But how anxious is Egypt to have an FDA agreement with the United States? Congressman Dreyer said everybody he spoke to welcomed it. Of course, they're welcomed it. How anxious are they to sit down and go through the negotiations? Egypt had a long laundry list of reforms that were presented by the U.S. government many years ago before the United States entertained talking about a free trade agreement. And we're very grateful. Private sector, actually the Egyptian government did go through those reforms as Congressman Engler said, the banking sector, the trade non-tariff barriers and so on, and tariffs went down. And that was something that we were so close to signing, so starting the negotiations. So we were, you know, and then politics really got in the way. And we don't want that to happen again. We want to put politics out of the way to look at it commercially for Egypt and the United States. Of course, for the United States it's such a strategic area or country on the politics side, on the security side, on the DOD side. I think it's something that also is a given. But what has Egypt done since these negotiations were stopped or not started maybe five, six years ago? The EU partnership expanded tremendously as Meredith has said and so on. The Pan-Arab free trade agreement is now working better and it's the Comessa, the East Africa free trade agreement with Egypt. Turkey in 207 free trade agreement with Egypt. Efta, Norway, Switzerland, Iceland and Liechtenstein. Mercosur, Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay free trade agreement with Egypt. Russia, India, they're talking about it now. And now the big boy, China. The Chinese are coming and the Chinese are coming quickly, quietly and strongly. The Chinese are working so hard. They have the money and they have the expertise. Negotiating an FTA with Egypt will be very painful for the Egyptian bureaucracy. And I don't know if they have the capacity. The Egyptian bureaucracy looks at what has to be done with the US FTA with trepidation. China is huge. There's a lot of negotiations. A lot of technical expertise is needed. There's a lot of legal expertise that's needed. And in their mind there's less problematic alternatives. Again, China. China doesn't have any conditions on labor. They don't have any conditions on the environment. They don't have any conditions on human rights. It's easier. But let me also look at something. Again, to go back, free trade agreement with the United States is a given. It's something that is good for Egypt. And we think it's good for the United States on a broader sense. But let's look at Egypt's economy now, today. It's hurting, ladies and gentlemen. Meredith just said it. The first quarter of this year, minus 4% GDP. Second quarter, 0.4. Maybe we'll end the year at one. And this is, as Meredith said, something that was 5.6 during the financial crisis. Seven and eight before that. So it's a big, big drop. Look at the macros, and it's still depressing. The reserves are down from $36 billion to 20. And we're losing them at about 1.5 or 2 a month, depending. Our budget deficit is 9.6 and growing. Interest rates up. Inflation up. Unemployment, as Congressman Drain said, 2 million have been lost up. The pound is down. Egypt needs short-term support. It's good to talk about the free trade agreement. It's really important to talk about the free trade agreement. It's even more important to have a free trade agreement. But Egypt really needs support today. And the US needs to put its weight behind this. The US doesn't have to fork out huge sums of money itself. But the United States has the weight around the world to make sure that people, other countries, support Egypt. It is important. The economy is tanking. Whatever government we have, they're going to have to deal with a very, very serious situation. The US has to support Egypt. We don't need a war to kick-start US support, do we? The future of Egypt will be good. It must be good. If you take everybody out of Egypt, just look at the location. It's fantastic. If you wanted to choose a location for a country, you probably, I know everybody's going to say, well, the United States, but no. Apart from the United States. Everywhere in the world, you know, on the Mediterranean, on the Red Sea, with the Suez Canal, with the Nile, in Asia, in Africa, Mediterranean, Islamic, Coptic, African, it's just, it's the genius of Egypt. And of course, the fantastic potential that is there with the 80 million people, half of them youth. And FTA is crucial for Egypt. US support now, now is critical for Egypt. And I think the youth that have startled the world for a quest for a better Egypt, for a better life, please, let's not let them down. Thank you. Well, thank you very much. Our time is romping on pretty fast. So why don't we just jump right into questions here? And if someone has one they'd like to ask, the microphone be given to you, and please state your name and affiliation. Any questions there? We've got right over here. Hi, I'm Michael Jubin. I work in the Middle East program here at CSIS. Thanks to all of you for your insights. This is a question for Mr. Fahmi in particular. You mentioned the bureaucratic needs in Egypt and some challenges there in the short term to building the capacity for a long term solution to this. What are the things that the bilateral relationship can be focusing on in the short term to work on those sorts of challenges in support of something like an FTA or other initiatives that require that kind of sort of permanent capacity? I'm sorry, I missed the question. Sure. Regarding the bureaucratic needs, what are the things that the United States and Egypt and Egypt can be doing together to fill those gaps, to solve the challenges of technical expertise, or other training initiatives that can be done, that kind of thing, in support of a longer term FTA? Well, obviously there's a huge learning process for an FTA, and the learning process doesn't just include government, but it includes the private sector. The private sector in Egypt needs to know what it means to have an FTA with the United States. What are the opportunities? What are the challenges? Not everybody wins with an FTA. There are losers and winners, but the total is a win. The technical expertise will have to come from the United States, but also it will have to come from Egypt. I think the private sector has a lot of experts that the Egyptian government will need to reach out to to help it negotiate an FTA, or other countries that have negotiated an FTA, and I think if I was Egyptian government, I would go and find somebody from Mexico or Korea who's negotiated with the United States and let them help in the process and have a learning process there. Another question? We've got a clump over here. Why don't we do the fellow on the turtleneck? Quick question. Hisham, I remember you and you had hair. I was Secretary General for the Egypt U.S. President Council. At that time we were pushing for trade, not instead of aid. My question, considering the complications of having an FTA, why don't we focus on revising the investment treatment? Wouldn't this be a more practical thing to work on right now and get the train moving and then at a later time we'll talk about FTA? I think he did ask you. You were still always asking questions when I had hair. I think the investment opportunities in Egypt, as Congressman Dryar said, with examples like Coca-Cola and Procter & Gamble and General Motors and Apache and so on, there's no real impediment for investments in Egypt. And I know Meredith has put in the updating of the bilateral investment treaty. I'm not so sure that's an extreme priority. I think it's something that is important for the United States. I think if the Egyptian government is looking at it, they're going to say, well, why am I giving all these guarantees without getting something in return? And that's where the BIT and the FTA negotiations sort of mesh together. I think there are a lot of modules in the FTA negotiations that can be done either consecutively or parallel-wise that can improve the investment and the reforms and so on without going through double negotiations like the bilateral and the FTA. I guess I'm more positive about it because I think it's a good signal. I mean, for us, if the U.S. was able to get our domestic political consensus in a spot where we could announce we would like to update the FTA, update the BIT with Egypt, that would be good and I think it would be good news for people, investors looking at Egypt who has a signal of goodwill and wanting to make sure that investment was safe. BITs have a lot of just kind of institutional benefits to them due process requirements and so forth. I get the point that maybe it's more one way, but I'm sure the Egyptians can come up with something on their side that could go along as a companion negotiation with a BIT. And as a practical matter, there is a stepping stone to an FTA because every FTA has an investment chapter which looks very much like a BIT. So if you want to start what we've been talking here today as the process of the beneficial process of getting to a free trade agreement ultimately, it really is a stepping stone there and there's others that we could talk about and hopefully we'll have some programs in the future where we can talk about maybe it's a customs facilitation agreement and just interim steps of goodwill and good news for Egypt that help the bureaucracy get organized and have some good goals of transparency and just openness that we think is beneficial. I mean, the Egyptians will have their views on these things, but these are goals that would be important for the United States, which we believe would help Egypt. There's another gentleman over there, yes? I'm Chuck Dietrich with the National Foreign Trade Council and the U.S. Middle East Free Trade Coalition. First of all, Hesham, I think your hair is great. But you've been here. Hesham, I think you've been here so many times over the years and you're really well-known on the Hill. Phil, you targeted the houseways and means focus probably more than any other time on commercial opportunities in the Middle East and how to use the commercial agenda to build our strategic agenda. What do you think is the mood in houseways and means specifically and in the speaker's office and what steps do you think can be done to get them in a better place if they're not there already to think seriously about an Egypt FTA? I think that they are interested. They are there. Full disclosure. I've not had an extended conversation with them, but as you know, I know the trade council very well on Mr. Boehner's shop used to be my LD. They, I think, are looking for next steps on the trade front. And the administration, I think it's fair to say, has other preoccupations at the moment with the exception of TPP and Russia's entry into the WTO and what we would do to accommodate that. There really does, to be fair, does not appear to be a lot immediately on the agenda. I think there is a pent-up demand among House Republicans to move forward on some ambitious agreements that maybe go beyond traditional trade promotion authority and go beyond traditional FTAs. I think that, particularly, Egypt would be challenging. There will be a natural constituency for it in the House. You'll remember... I'm sorry, it was co-chairing with me a Middle East economic opportunity caucus. I think there is still the center of gravity between Ryan, Mr. Brady, and a few others to back something that would move quickly and be very, very aggressive. But I do think it's going to take a role and a sign-off by the executive branch to move something forward. Answer your question. They're hungry, and I think this would directly address what they're craving for. So can I just actually follow up on that? When we had the last free trade agreements go through, I think a lot of people were surprised that they moved through. What was the key selling point? I'm not sure it was a selling point as much as it was a sea change in the House of Representatives. Understand historically, the Senate has been comparatively bipartisan in its support for trade agreements. However, in the House over time, there had been building resistance to doing additional FTAs. And I think this was as much political and tactical as it was anything else. What you had was fewer and fewer House Democrats who were in the space that Mr. Meeks now occupies of being someone willing to embrace a new trade initiative. I realized some of my former colleagues on ways and means on the Democratic side would probably disagree with me on this. Certainly there's some like Joe Crowley who I think are very aggressive on trade. I just think it has gotten over time more and more difficult for House Democrats to find a space where they are comfortable and where they can work with their coalition with the AFL-CIO being put into the minority and having a Republican majority with very, very few AFL-CIO allies in it, I think simply cleared the boards to move everything forward. I mean, it's really as simple as that. Thank you. Question? Yes, back there. The lady in red. My name is Jillian Moroney. I'm with Nathan Associates. We have a contract with USAID and I'm the Deputy Chief of Party Trade Facilitation in Egypt. And I was in Egypt in the 2000s when there was a lot of talk about a free trade agreement that Hisham has alluded to. And it was dropped for political reasons. So this is a question to the Americans. I mean, if I was the Egyptians I would be very concerned. I mean, maybe I have an election for president or my constitution and it doesn't go quite the way the Americans would like. But how would that affect the free trade agreement negotiations? My own view is I don't think it particularly would. I think this is a time when both countries have an enormous interest in moving forward. Four variety of reasons. From the Egyptians standpoint, not only would a free trade agreement with the largest economy in the world give them a shot in the arm when whoever is in the new government they're going to need to show results and increase economic growth comparatively fast. But also I think it has a solitary effect on their trade relationship with the EU. I've found over the years as a co-chairman of the EU caucus that the EU responds very aggressively when the US goes and poaches on markets that they regard as in their back yard. We saw that with the Moroccan FTA. I think that the best thing that an Egyptian government could do would be to embrace against perhaps the expectation a free trade negotiation with the US that would dramatically, I think, strengthen their hand in negotiating a better agreement and new opportunities with the EU. There's another question over here, right? My name is Omar Mohana. I'm an Egyptian industrialist. I'm in the cement business and car-time manufacturing business. And I'm the past president of the American Chamber of Commerce. I've been coming to Washington for the last years, many, many years. We've talked about free trade and I think everything about the free trade has been said today. The challenges that Egypt is facing, we used to have a very good economic story and a lousy political story. I think now it's the reverse. We have a better political story and a lousy economic story. But one of the big challenges that Egypt is facing now is the brain flight, the outcome of the political outcome of the reforms that are taking place, the elections and all that would lead, and it is already leading to the fact that many of the brightest and the best educated are thinking twice. We have succeeded over the years in attracting the best and the brightest back to Egypt. Now we see a reverse. We see a real brain flight that's starting to take place. And I think that maybe an FDA could reinforce a bit the sense of confidence and would give the young and the brightest another opportunity to rethink their plans and try to live with the political actualities of Egypt and have possibly a more optimistic approach. So maybe this is an additional point that could be added to an FDA. Thank you. Any more questions? There we go. We got one right back there. I actually used to work for GAFI, the investment promotion agency based in Cairo, and somewhat related to the last question. I was curious to hear given the investment climate in Egypt now with the government, whether it's GAFI or another ministry is doing to address investor confidence, whether that's current investors or future investors. That's mainly directed to you, Mr. Sham. Thanks. You have to feel sorry for them. Every time you try to attract investment there's something in Tahrir Square that people think that it's all over Egypt and investors are not very risky. On the other hand, there have been very, very good examples of companies coming in and there are deals in Egypt now that companies have invested whether from the Gulf or from Sweden and they've made substantial investments since January in Egypt and I think those companies are going to make a big bucks in Egypt. They're betting on Egypt's not just geography, but market and the reforms that are coming. If everything goes well and you have all the physical ingredients of Egypt right and then you add to it the democracy rule of law less corruption and so on more human rights and so on there's never going to be a better place around the world. We have time for one last question right there. Hi, my name is Robbins Pancake formerly with Hewlett Packard in Agilent Technologies. My question is mainly for Heisham I think and that is the concern I hear expressed around Washington particularly in the business community is who do we negotiate from public policy people? Who do we negotiate with? There's an election every three months or so a new parliament, new president, whatever so it boils down to is there a trade minister is there an institutional structure is there enough enthusiasm in Egypt so that no matter what happens politically that there will be the foundation for proceeding with discussions because I think the image certainly here is that boy we just need to wait 9 to 12 months before we even start the conversation. I think what congressman Dryer said before is that everybody all the structures there and the political parties realize that investment and attracting investment and making it a business friendlier environment is important. Yes there are challenges now of getting people to sign off on difficult deals and so on or things that require special licenses and so on that is a challenge right now but if you're investment or you're thinking about Egypt and so on this is the time to do due diligence. Look around look at the market, look at the segmentation look at the who's going to be your partner I think if you do all that it's going to take you some time anyway and once we're talking now June for having a president constitution, parliament by end of June in July if that's extended for a couple of months so you're talking seven months and I think any serious investment will take longer than that to put together so you use this time to do your investigations to do your what you need to have an investment going look at the financing look at all that and there is a lot of support especially in financing I mean everybody the EBRD the ECSOM all these institutions are putting their weight behind US companies working in Egypt so this is the time to look at especially in the financing packages and so on. Well thank you very much we're wrapping up our session now and thank you the panel it was really terrific I think everybody learned a lot thank you the guests for coming over to CSAS I think we heard both that there's a good economic reason for free trade agreement there's a good political reason I'm very struck by Congressman Dreyer quoting Assistant Secretary Jeff Feldman saying this is the kind of issue that can bring all Egyptians together and I think that something at this time is really a vital interest so let's hope that the CSAS report here can really reinvigorate the debate and move this forward and get something moving on this because it sounds like the time is here thank you very much for coming