Elections at Chamber of Handicrafts at Federation of Egyptian Industries (FEI) takes part today with the participation of around 19 nominees on winning 10 memberships at chamber's Board of Directors. The BoD encompasses 15 members , five out of which are appointed by state's industry and trade ministry. By the end of 2015, Trade Minister Tarek Qabil issued a decree to form new chamber for handicrafts industries to be attached to the FEI. He added that establishing the chamber comes as pursuant to government's care of handicrafts industries since it save Egypt's national identity and provide large number of job opportunities. Speaking to Amwal Al Ghad Saturday, Hisham El Gazzar ,one of the nominees for BoD membership, added that chamber's major priority for the coming period is to determine all handicrafts industries all over Egypt besides converting the sector to be an official one. El Gazzar -also an official at the chamber- noted that the chamber aims at cooperating with state's Social Fund for Development (SFD) within the coming period. On other side, exports of handicrafts sector reached US$400 million by the end of 2015, the official added. Moreover, he stated that the chamber has a strategy to upgrade handicrafts sector within the coming period. The strategy includes training workers in different workshops, using foreign expertise to upgrade the designs of those workshops, in addition to registering those workshops.
