Egypt's interior ministry has said it will grant owners of electric cars temporary licence plates and insured licences until procedures related to licensing of the vehicles are regularised. In an official statement on Monday, the interior ministry said the step comes as part of its keenness to facilitate procedures for citizens who have imported electric cars from abroad. It has called on its traffic departments to grant owners of the cars licence plates and permits under the traffic law and its bylaws until necessary regulations to permanently license the cars are put in place. Egypt has been trying to embrace and use the new technology, as countries around the world increasingly move toward a battery-powered car market. Last month, Egypt signed a deal with Beijing-based automaker Foton Motor to manufacture electric buses in the country. Egypt opened its first electric vehicle charging unit in February, 2018 on the Cairo-Suez highway; the unit is owned by Revolta Egypt, the developer of electric charging infrastructure and other electric vehicle-related projects, which was founded in 2016. Egypt aims to boost its use of renewable energy to 22 percent by 2020 as part of efforts to achieve sustainable development. The number of electric vehicles on roads worldwide rose to a record high of 3.1 million in 2017, an increase of 57 percent from 2016, according to a report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) published in May 2018.
