CAIRO: Egypt's El Wadi Cement has filed a court case seeking to regain a production license that was cancelled over start-up delays, Al-Mal newspaper reported on Sunday. In November, the Industrial Development Authority's (IDA) licensing committee cancelled the licenses of two firms, El Wadi Cement and North Sinai Cement, over delays and financing shortfalls, but each was granted 60 days to appeal. However, the two firms did not meet the conditions during the appeal period, which led Egypt to open a bidding in May for two new licenses. "El Wadi Cement requests to get back its revoked license or be granted a financial compensation that is up to LE 250 million Egyptian ($44 million) which is the total value of the company's investments in construction operations," Al-Mal said, citing the firm's managing director Khairy Maklad. However, the head of the IDA, Amr Assal told the newspaper that the authority has not received any request from El Wadi Cement to get its license back. Both El Wadi Cement and the industrial authority were unavailable to comment. El Wadi Cement in February secured a $328 million loan which it said it will use to build its delayed factory in order to get back its revoked production license and return to Egypt's booming construction sector. The country's construction industry has continued to grow in the wake of the global financial crisis, although it stalled in other parts of the region, with consumption rising 25 percent and production topping 50 million tons per year. Egypt is planning to issue eight additional cement licenses this year, as it aims to boost production capacity to 80 million tons a year by 2015 from 50 million.
