Egyptian Junior Business Association

Egyptian Junior Business Association (EJB)

The Egyptian Junior Business Association (EJB) is a non-governmental, non-for-profit Organization which was established in 1999 with the mission to effectively participate in the economic reform process and enable the business environment to support Egypt’s competitive ranking regionally and internationally. To achieve its mission, EJB worked on three main pillars in line with Egypt’s strategic sustainable development vision for 2030. Those pillars are enabling and developing the young business environment, members’ business support, as well as supporting the development of the Egyptian community on socioeconomic fronts. EJB is highly focused on supporting the MSMES throughout its established 18 committees in specialized crosscutting sectors to serve its businessmen and women members in developing their businesses through strong governmental networks and relations on national and international fronts. EJB is geographically and strategically spread with its branches in five governorates: Cairo, Alexandria, Upper Egypt and Portsaid with an objective to spread in all twenty seven governorates of Egypt. The EJB aims to address its services and community development support to target youth entrepreneurs, start-ups, and macro, small and medium enterprises.

Sector Based Committees:
1. International Relations
2. Law and Legislation
3. Finance and Banking
4. Health and Pharmaceutical
5. Food and Agriculture
6. Industry
7. Textile
8. Corporate Social Responsibility
9. Women empowerment
10. Communication and information technology
11. Members services
12. Construction and building systems
13. Energy and renewable energy
14. Transportation
15. Logistics
16. Trade
17. Real Estate
18. Education
19. Marketing
20. Tourism and Aviation
21. Consultancy
22. Corporate Responsibility

Our Scope of Activities
Enhancement of Business Environment
– Act as a liaison between Private Sector SMEs and the Government to improve the
business environment in all sectors
– Encourage the elimination of corruption in Egypt/promoting integrity and ethical
business conduct
– Tackle the major obstacles that affect business growth
– Develop initiatives and projects to support business growth

Members’ Business Support
– Local and International B2B meetings
– Business missions abroad
– Trade exhibitions
– Online portal for business opportunities alert services

Networking
– Periodical business social gatherings
– Periodical committee meetings

Business Highlighting
– Online Company Profile
– Opportunity for Business Branding and presence during EJB Functions
– Advertisement Opportunities

Community Development
– Promote and encourage “Corporate Social Responsibility” among members
– Create and participate in projects and initiatives to address major problems in the
community that can affect the business environment such as employability, training and
development and vocational enhancement

Past EJB Projects and Initiatives

– National Business Agenda (NBA)
The agenda aims at enhancing Egypt’s development through pinpointing the major obstacles
that hinder the economy, recommending solutions from the business sector’s perspective as
well as increasing public awareness on the importance of competitiveness. It encourages the
private sector to be an active partner in economic growth and in the reform process through
working cohesively to update the agenda on a regular basis.
The initiative is a fully funded project that aims at fighting corruption and advancing integrity
through multi-stakeholder cooperation. The results of the initiative are measured via the active
participation of the SMEs as well as how far they introduced and applied the initiative
objectives of their companies. The NBA has been successfully introducing and sharing this
agenda with the government stakeholders on all fronts to improve business and investment
climate in Egypt. The last one was submitted in 2019.
The NBA aims at introducing EJB’s member’s vision on the main obstacles in cross-cutting
sectors and present it to the related government stakeholders through a series of discussions.
The best suggestions and solutions towards the development of the economic growth in Egypt.

– Access to Finance
The majority or EJB member companies are categorized as SMEs. They represent the Egyptian
Society where the potential for growth is high provided they gain access to finance. EJB and
CIPE with the help of Pricewaterhouse Coopers have developed a manual for SMEs to assist
them in understanding existing financial tools to become more credit worthy.
Many SMEs who require finance are unaware of the financial tools available to them due to the
lack of proper capabilities to address financial institutions. EJB believes in the importance of
breaching the gap between SMEs and their access to finance by issuing a manual that
introduced the various financial tools available to SMEs and their operational mechanisms. The
manual was instrumental in providing educational value through introducing clear guidelines to
clients related to their operations, which financial institutions review when assessing their
clients (i.e., proper financial reporting, importance of corporate governance, profitability
measure that banks use to assess clients…etc.)

Corporate Governance
Through EJB’s partnership with the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) the EJB has
engaged the private sector in active participation represented in its member companies as well
as non-members on best practices of corporate governance. Successful business initiatives and
broad corporate vision and successful business initiatives were promoted through an
awareness campaign, 3 workshops and 3 round tables culminating in a corporate governance
conference.

Corporate Governance for Family Business
Owing to the fact that a large percentage of EJB member companies are characterized by the
domination of family businesses in economic activities, most of the family businesses face
challenges because of the differences in attitude and aspirations of family members. Eventually
family business gets entangled in the “Family first/business first” phase in Egypt. Family
businesses contribute from 60% to 70% of the GDP and only 13% survive till the 3 rd generation
and only 4% go beyond it. Third of family businesses disintegrate because of generational
conflicts.
The EJB has created a manual for Corporate Governance in the Family Business with CIPE to for
their members and the business community to understand the challenges that face family
businesses, to be capable of building the yardstick of evaluating the process that the family
business has been going through and contribute to proposing solutions. The EJB is the first
Governance Manual of its kind to be developed in Egypt and the Middle East.

– MENA-OECD Collaboration
EJB is the official representative of the Egyptian Associations in MENA-OECD Business Advisory
Board. The Mena OECD competitive program is a strategic partnership between the Middle East
and North Africa (MENA) and OECD economies to share knowledge, expertise and good
practices. It aims to contribute to the development of inclusive, sustainable and competitive
economies across the region. This program covers Algeria, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan,
Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestinian Authority, Qatar, Saudi Arabia,
Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.

– KEY Program
A Capacity building program for university students and fresh graduates that equips them with
essential employability skills in order for them to match the labor market requirements.

KEY was based in Cairo, Alexandria and Fayoum Universities. EJB is seeking new sponsorships to
re-engineer the initiative in additional public universities.

– Micro Finance – Mashroa3ak 7akika
This project aims at providing access to finance for entrepreneurs with small feasible projects
and lacks the finance. We help them to bring their business ideas to life by mentoring, funding
and later monitoring performance of their businesses.

– Franchise Egypt
The initiative supports the “Franchise” industry in Egypt through organizing several workshops
and events, such as “Franchise Egypt Expo” that included more than 40 national and
international brands

– Egyptian cotton Protection Initiative
The Egyptian Ministry of Trade and Industry and the Alexandria Cotton Exporters’ Association,
owners of the Egyptian Cotton logo, have formed the Cotton Egypt Association to be their sole
representative for the trademark logo and licensing program to protect Egyptian cotton’s
heritage luxury.
EJB participated in establishing the marketing plans and censorship systems for the products
carrying the Egyptian cotton trade mark to secure the eligibility of usage

– Vocational Education – Eshtaghal Fanny Initiative:
Eshtaghal is a national initiative, launched in 2014, under the auspices of the President of Egypt
aiming at solving the unemployment issue in Egypt, it included adopting an employment
campaign to enhance the principles of vocational and technical jobs.
EJB signed a protocol agreement with the Technical Vocational Education Training Program
(VET) funded by the European Union in Egypt to upgrade and develop technical education in
Egypt to meet socio-economic market need to increase employment.