About Us:

TAS was officially established by Ministerial Decree 411 of 2002 and initially included the Central Department of Bilateral and Multilateral Agreements (CD/BMA) and Central Department of World Trade Organization Affairs (CD/WTO). The CD/WTO acts as the main coordinating body for all issues related to the WTO. Among its main functions is serving as the Technical Secretariat to the High National Committee on the Doha Negotiations (HNC), which formulates the Egyptian position in all WTO negotiations. The Central Department for Bilateral and Multilateral Agreements was established in order to improve coordination among bilateral, regional, and multilateral negotiations and to improve Egyptian products’ access to foreign markets. This linkage helps to ensure that bilateral and regional agreements are fully consistent with Egypt’s WTO commitments, that critical information is shared during bilateral, regional, or multilateral negotiations, and that specialized technical expertise is integrated to handle trade negotiations. ​

In 2003 the Central Department of International Trade Policies (CD/ITP) was moved to TAS from the Foreign Trade Policies Sector. While CD/WTO and CD/BMA help ensure improved access for Egyptian products abroad, the CD/ITP, since its inception in 1998, has been helping to defend Egyptian producers against trading partners’ unfair trade practices or surges in imports that cause serious injury to local producers. Finally, the European Partnership Agreement Unit (EPAU) was added to TAS to help implement the Egypt-EU Partnership Agreement. 

Supporting CD/WTO, CD/BMA, CD/ITP, and EPAU are a legal research and analysis unit and a trade analysis unit, both new additions to TAS. The first unit helps to ensure that Egypt complies with its trade agreement obligations, while the second works to measure the impact of different trade agreements to better guide TAS and MFTI policies. TAS also includes departments for administration and management, as well as information technology. Click here to see the TAS Organizational Chart. 

In 2004 TAS, through its various departments, drafted its first Trade Agreements Sector Program for the Promotion of Egyptian Exports during 2005-2006, which details the Sector and the Ministry’s strategy to promote Egyptian exports through bilateral, regional and multilateral agreements.