First industrial complex ready THE CONSTRUCTION Products Holding Company (CPC), a Saudi company for manufacturing building materials, has started experimental operations of its new industrial complex in 6 October governorate. The 1.5 million square metre complex is the first private industrial park in Egypt. CPC's complex is created in cooperation with the General Authority for Industrial Development and Investment. Faysal Al-Aquil, CPC's director of business development and administration affairs, said that the complex will help spur Egypt's economic growth by providing investors with the highest level of facilities and services for their projects. It has various support facilities for companies including residential buildings for workers and administrative offices. Moreover, the 67 factories serviced by the complex have created 11,097 jobs in key industrial sectors including those concerned with construction materials, food and textiles, drawing a total investment of more than $400 million. The building materials sector takes up 40 per cent of the park, the food industry 30 per cent while the textiles industry 20 per cent. The remaining 10 per cent is dedicated to support facilities such as roads, water, electricity and communications. Egypt's World Bank plan EGYPT is currently cooperating with the World Bank on seven new projects at a total investment of $1.5 billion, of which $300 million will be paid from the government budget while the remainder will be paid by the economic authorities and the holding companies which utilise the loans. This was recently announced by Minister of State for International Cooperation Fayza Abul-Naga following a meeting with World Bank Managing Director Mahmoud Mohieldin during his recent visit to Cairo. Abul-Naga also discussed with Mohieldin Egypt's cooperation with the World Bank for the period from 2011-2015 within the framework of the World Bank's Arab World Initiative. This strategy aims at boosting the World Bank's role in supporting development in Arab countries through providing finance for development projects and civil societies. The mechanism includes supporting joint infrastructure projects in several sectors such as electricity, transportation and renewable energy. The World Bank plan also aims at providing assistance to small and medium enterprises to help creating job opportunities. The third aim of the strategy is to develop human resources in Arab countries through providing high educational programmes for school and university students. Mohieldin said Egypt's portfolio for cooperation with the World Bank during the past few years has included 17 projects which are currently being established. Abul-Naga added that Egypt is keen to diversify its cooperation projects with the World Bank to include several sectors such as education, electricity, agriculture, renewable energy, transportation, health and environment. She asserted that this system of sharing loans with the different economic organisations helped Egypt to keep its foreign debts under control. During the past 10 years, Egypt has been ranked by the World Bank as a safe debt country since its foreign debt fell to 16 per cent of of its GDP in 2010. Tying the knot with Zambia EGYPT is seeking to connect more actively with its southern African neighbours. Last week, a senior delegation of government officials and private sector companies, headed by the president of the Republic of Zambia, visited Egypt to discuss the means to strengthen economic ties and seek more Egyptian investment in the country. The visit resulted in the signing of two agreements between Zambia-based Electrometer Al-Sewedy and the Electricity Company of Zambia (ZESCO), to export 400,000 pre-paid electric metres and two million energy-saving bulbs to Zambia. According to Ahmed El-Sewedy, CEO of Al-Sewedy Cables, a world player in cables and the main Egyptian investor in more than 20 African and Middle Eastern countries, Zambia acts as a hub enabling exportation to all the other neighbouring African countries. "We have been present in Zambia since 2006. Major advantages include the high quality of labour and a supportive government that has recently launched a nationwide programme for energy savings," said El-Sewedy, who added that the company decided to invest in a new production line to cover the need for energy-saving bulbs in the Zambian market. According to Khaled Fouad, executive director of Electrometer El-Sewedy, two factories for the production of electrometers and energy-saving bulbs at an investment of $15 million and $6 million will start production during the coming year. "The factory will produce three million bulbs, and production will be doubled within the next three years. It also provides job opportunities for 200 people," said Fouad. Zambia is prime territory for Egyptian investors. According to Muhabi Lungu, director of investment promotion and privatisation at the Zambia Development Agency, the country is in the heart of two economic blocs whose total population comes to 647 million. "We have highways to link Zambia with other African countries. The return on investment is very high. Basic infrastructure and services are lacking and very ambitious development plans have been set to target various sectors including IT, transportation, mining, tourism and construction," said Lungu.
