CAIRO — On July 30, Egypt’s Ministry of State for Immigration and Expatriate Affairs held its first forum for Egyptian expatriates. The conference resulted in several recommendations to promote investment in Egypt. They included exploring the possibility of opening branches of local banks abroad, marketing the Egyptian banking system to Egyptians abroad and coordinating between the Foreign Ministry and banks to include representatives of Egyptian banks in consulates.

Upon the request of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and in cooperation with four banks, Misr Life Insurance started issuing Safety Certificates in March. The savings certificates are available for marginalized classes and self-employed workers.

The forum also called on the banking sector to study a proposal put forward by the Egyptian diaspora in the United States to establish an investment fund in dollars. On June 9, Nasser Saber, the president of the Egyptian-American Association for Entrepreneurship, revealed a plan to create the fund with a capital of $10 billion from Egyptian expats to invest in Egyptian markets.

The forum and the fund have renewed talks about Egyptian expat money as one of the solutions to Egypt’s economic crisis. A crisis over the lack of foreign currency reserves at the end of ousted President Mohammed Morsi’s term in 2013 led to floating the Egyptian pound in 2016. A February 2016 initiative called on each Egyptian expat to send $200 to his home country.