[4][5] The EEDC had been initially suggested by the King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, whose country along with the United Arab Emirates and other Gulf monarchies, have been the largest financial and political backers of Egypt's president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

Abel Fattah Sisi led the coup d'état of Muslim Brotherhood-backed president, Mohamed Morsi, in the summer of 2013, pledging billions of dollars in aid to the new Egyptian government.

[6] In January 2015, the Egyptian government told an International Monetary Fund delegation that it aims to achieve a 3.8% growth rate by June, claiming that Egypt's economy grew by 6.8% in the third quarter of the previous year.

[7] The conference's organizer, Richard Attias, expected the unveiling of over thirty projects "which can attract billions of dollars of investment,"[9] with more than 2,500 high-level attendees, including heads of state, public figures, chairmen, and CEOs of multinational corporations among others.

[11] General Electric announced at the conference that it would invest $200 million in a new training and manufacturing facility in the city of Suez and that it had delivered 34 gas turbines as part of a project to supply 2.6 gigawatts to its grid by May 2015.

[14] Egypt's irrigation minister, Hossam Moghazy, later discussed with a European Union delegation the One Million Feddan land reclamation project, one of the highlights in Sisi's election campaign a year earlier.