Ashraf Abdel Ghani, Secretary of the Senate Economic Committee, said: Industry It is the future in order to provide hard currency to Egypt, and therefore we have no solution except to increase industry rates in Egypt and increase exports through industry.
Abdel Ghani confirmed in statements to “Sada El Balad” that one of the most important industries that the country is interested in is the automobile industry, stressing that the localization of the production requirements industry protects the local industry from supply chain disruptions and the rise in global prices that limit the production capacity of the Egyptian industry and its high costs and reduce its ability to compete in foreign markets.
The Secretary of the Economic Committee in the Senate called for the necessity of maximizing the production requirements that enter into the Egyptian industry, instead of importing from abroad, stressing the necessity of choosing more than 4 industries with the aim of maximizing the benefit from the production requirements.
Dr. Mostafa Madbouly, Prime Minister, followed up on the developments of the National Program for the Development of the Automotive Industry, in a meeting held in the presence of Engineer Khaled Hashem, Minister of Industry, and Engineer Alaa Salah, Head of the Automotive Unit at the Ministry of Industry.
The Prime Minister stressed that this meeting comes with the aim of following up on the developments of this national program, which enhances the state’s interest in the issue of localization of the automobile industry, by creating a major industrial base in this promising field, and attracting major companies to localize their industries in Egypt, with special attention paid to electric cars in light of the state’s move towards expanding the use of clean energy sources and reducing dependence on traditional fuels.
The Minister of Industry presented the most prominent axes of the National Automotive Industry Development Program (AIDP), stressing that the formulation of these axes takes place in a participatory framework with automobile manufacturers, as a working group was formed that includes members of the Supreme Council for the Automotive Industry, representatives of the private sector, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Investment and Foreign Trade, and the Automotive Industry Unit of the Ministry of Industry. It reviews all data and information related to the program’s axes to determine the needs and proposals of manufacturers, in an effort to enhance the flexibility of the program and come up with recommendations that serve the automotive industry sector.
In turn, the head of the Automotive Unit at the Ministry of Industry discussed the most important requirements currently included in the program, in terms of the minimum annual production volume of cars for one company within the framework of the program, the percentage of the targeted local industrial component, the maximum engine capacity, and the percentage of value added through actual manufacturing processes, whether for cars with fossil fuels, or electric cars in particular, in addition to pointing out the most prominent incentives that the program seeks to provide, especially with regard to the determinants of environmental commitment or the volume of new investments and opening export opportunities.
Engineer Alaa Salah added that, within the framework of supporting this national program, the Ministry of Investment and Foreign Trade is studying the activation of investment incentives for Law No. 72 of 2017 for the automobile sector and the industries that feed it, with the Automotive Industry Unit of the Ministry of Industry proposing to the Supreme Council of the Automotive Industry to add hybrid cars to the National Automotive Industry Development Program (AIDP) within the incentives for environmental commitment, in addition to the Fund to finance the purchase of some rapid transit vehicles studying an economically feasible incentive initiative to replace obsolete taxi cars. And owners of new electric cars, while studying the contribution of the Automotive Industry Finance Fund to non-monetary incentives for the industries feeding the automobile industry, with the aim of alleviating the burdens of deepening local manufacturing at the parts level.
At the conclusion of the meeting, Dr. Mostafa Madbouly was appointed; The Minister of Industry wants this file to be on his priority agenda, with the need to achieve positive steps, stressing that the government is ready to provide exceptional incentives to any international car manufacturing company that will localize its industries in Egypt, and pointing out that he has previously met with more than one company in this field; Reaching advanced stages of negotiation, what is currently required is to focus and end the negotiation and start this industry on a large scale in Egypt.
