English 
Under the auspices of Dr. Ayman Ashour, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Professor Dr. Abdelaziz Konsowa, President of Alexandria University, inaugurated today, Saturday, 13th of July 2024, the activities of the 21st International Scientific Conference of the Faculty of Business, which is held under the title "Global Challenges and Achieving Business Sustainability", in the presence of Dr. El Sayed El-Seifi, Dean of the Faculty of Business, Dr. Alaa El-Gharbawi, Vice Dean of the Faculty of Business for Community Service and Environmental Development Affairs, Mr. Ahmed El-Wakil, President of the Federation of Chambers of Commerce, Mr. Mohamed Hanno, President of the Alexandria Businessmen Association, and a group of faculty members of the Faculty of Business, as well as businessmen, civil society organizations, and members of the financial and business community in Alexandria.
In his speech, Dr. Konsowa stressed the need to work scientifically to overcome various challenges, noting that these challenges may represent promising opportunities, and explained that Alexandria Governorate is a first-class industrial governorate as it owns 58% of the gas and petrochemicals industries in Egypt, pointing out the need to achieve sustainability in all fields to build the new republic, which relies primarily on a knowledge-based economy in the true sense of sustainability.
Dr. Konsowa added that Alexandria University has taken it upon itself to adopt an ambitious strategy to ensure sustainability by linking the outputs of scientific research to industry, noting that Alexandria University has many initiatives to achieve sustainability, indicating that the construction work of the Technology Park of Alexandria University has been completed in order to finance applicable scientific research. He called on all members of the business and financial community who have innovative initiatives and ideas that can be applied to join the Technology Park to adopt these ideas and bring them to light. Konsowa pointed out the expansions witnessed by Alexandria University and achieving international competitiveness (internationalization at home) through the partnerships concluded by Alexandria University with major international universities and establishing branches of these international universities on Egyptian soil, such as establishing a branch of the Finnish University in Borg El Arab and signing a joint scientific degree with the University of Manchester in the field of medicine, dentistry and pharmacy, and many other international universities that rely primarily on sustainability.
Dr. El Sayed El-Seifi stressed that the choice of the conference title was not isolated from the reality of life and the challenges we are currently witnessing, noting that the conference topic addresses business sustainability, which is no longer just a trend but has become a basic necessity for the future of business and the nation. Dr. El-Seifi added that sustainability includes three pillars: economic prosperity, social justice, and environmental protection. He stressed that we must move towards many modern strategies in human resources management, making data-based decisions, embracing technology, using artificial intelligence and automation to simplify human resources operations, using marketing policies for business sustainability, using green marketing techniques, participating in environmentally friendly advertising, evaluating environmental, social and governance factors to provide a more complete picture of companies, and supporting resource optimization to assess climate change risks.
Dr. El Seifi stressed the need to pay attention to financing and investment management for business sustainability, which is represented in green financing in sustainable businesses and projects, relying on investments that generate financial returns, and searching for alternative financing sources such as crowdfunding platforms and influential investors, using tax and customs systems, digitization, addressing tax evasion, and eliminating bureaucracy.
Dr. Alaa El-Din El-Gharbawy pointed out that there are many challenges facing the Egyptian economy, such as energy challenges, wars and geopolitical unrest, stressing that the conference will discuss all these challenges to try to find solutions for them, in addition to urging institutions to adopt sustainability to develop their work performance, because there are negative effects resulting from not using sustainability in economic and productive institutions that lead to the inability of these institutions.
While Mr. Ahmed El-Wakil stressed the importance of the conference topic to confront the challenges facing the Egyptian state. El-Wakil presented a set of recommendations to achieve economic growth, including restoring confidence in the banking system, reducing inflation, activating the role of productive sectors, giving absolute priority to manufacturing for export purposes, reviewing the state's administrative structure, adhering to the principle of the unity and comprehensiveness of the budget, respecting investor contracts and attracting foreign investments.
While Mr. Mohamed Hanno stressed the need to raise the efficiency of the state's administrative apparatus, restructuring it and eliminating bureaucracy, and praised the role of Alexandria University and its support for the financial and business sector in Alexandria by establishing business incubators and opening waste recycling plants to support sustainability.
