The Egypt Financial Regulatory Authority’s chair, Mohamed Farid, used a keynote at the “Africa grows by green transformation” Climate Finance Forum to outline recent regulatory changes and ongoing initiatives aimed at increasing private-sector sustainable finance and supporting emissions-reduction projects. He highlighted amendments to the executive regulations of the Capital Market Law that introduced a comprehensive category of sustainability bonds, alongside the continued build-out of a regulated and supervised voluntary carbon market launched in August 2024. The expanded sustainable-finance framework followed the authority’s first green bond issuance framework in 2019 and was widened to cover sustainability bonds that link financing terms to measurable environmental or social targets, with further amendments adding green investment funds. Farid reported five successful sustainability-related issuances to date totalling EGP 11.56bn in local currency and USD 599k in US dollar issuances. On the voluntary carbon market, he described the sequence of measures including amendments recognising carbon emission reduction certificates as a financial instrument, the establishment of a trading platform by the Egyptian Exchange, and the creation of an oversight and supervision committee chaired by the authority and including the Ministry of Environment and the exchange. The authority also issued listing and delisting rules for carbon certificates, standards for accrediting local voluntary carbon registries, and exchange trading and settlement rules, and reported the registration of three verification and validation bodies and several projects from India, Oman, Bangladesh and Egypt. Farid indicated further work to develop a regulatory framework for evaluating and classifying carbon certificates to attract specialised rating providers, and to develop specialised insurance products to reduce risks associated with issuing and trading carbon certificates, alongside efforts to increase awareness and support wider issuance of tradable emission-reduction certificates.
Egypt Financial Regulatory Authority 2025-05-20
Egypt Financial Regulatory Authority expands sustainability bond rules and details progress on its regulated voluntary carbon market
The Egypt Financial Regulatory Authority, led by Mohamed Farid, announced changes to boost private-sector sustainable finance and emissions-reduction projects, including Capital Market Law amendments for sustainability bonds and a voluntary carbon market. Five sustainability-related issuances total EGP 11.56 billion and USD 599,000. The authority is also developing frameworks for carbon certificate evaluation and insurance products to mitigate trading risks.