Financial Controls
Foreign exchange is under official control. The basic regulation requires all foreign exchange earnings to be repatriated to Egypt within 6 months after the shipping date of the goods. The law requires that all dollar holdings or payments received by Egyptian nationals or foreigners residing in Egypt be reported to the Egyptian Government and converted into Egyptian currency at the official rate unless they are the proceeds of cotton yarn and cloth or raw cotton exports in which cases 100 percent or 75 percent, respectively, of the dollars may be retained for up to 210 days in an “import entitlement” account usable to buy certain listed essential and semiessential commodities.
[FRANCE]
License Requirements
Export licenses are required for over one-half the commodities identified in the French tariff nomenclature. Governmental authority of this control is contained in various decrees, the latest dated November 30, 1944. These decrees also permit addition to or removal from the list of controlled commodities merely by publication of a notice in the Journal Officiel. The most recent list of these commodities, published as a codification of all previous lists, appeared in Journal Officiel No. 156 of July 5, 1953.
Applications for license to export, as submitted by French exporters, are examined by the Ministry of Industry and Energy, by the Office des Changes (where monetary and financial factors are given consideration), and on occasion by appropriate technical committees and personnel in other agencies. At the time the application for export license is submitted, the exporter may be instructed by the Ministry of Industry and Energy to submit a sample, photograph, blueprint, drawing, or other detailed description of the commodity in question. These data are used in determining the advisability of issuing the export license requested. At the port of exit, random samples of actual exports are extracted by customs officials and these are compared by competent technicians with the original data submitted with the license application. This procedure is designed to assure in as many instances as practical that the commodity exported is identical with the commodity for which the export license is issued.
In the event fraudulent action on the part of the exporter is found and can be legally established, the exporter is subject to confiscation of the goods in question and fines ranging upward to four times the value of the shipment plus penal servitude. The control system in operation in France makes it possible to block or encourage exports to any destination of commodities requiring export licenses.
Financial Controls
All transactions in foreign exchange engaged in by French residents, particularly those in which a French resident takes title to foreign merchandise, require the prior authorization of the French Government.
An “exchange commitment” (guaranteeing the return to the Government of the exchange proceeds of a transaction) is required for all exports and reexports of merchandise to which a French resident holds title. Where the products concerned are subject to export license, the export license suffices for the exchange commitment.