CAIRO: The US-based giant General Electric has won a tender launched by the Egyptian government to supply the General Railways Authority with forty locomotives valued at nearly $120 million. Minister of Transports Mohammad Mansour said the US company would start supplying the diesel locomotives on September 2008 at a rate of ten vehicles per month. He pointed out that payment of the new machines would be financed by a $120 million grant from Qatar to the Egyptian Ministry of Transports. The government in November last year launched a bid for the supply of forty locomotives as part of a plan to import 130 vehicles for the national railways system. Four international companies have joined in the competition, including two Chinese companies and two from the United States. The Egyptian government last year also allocated LE 8.5 billion to upgrade the country s ailing railway system over a five-year period. The amount included LE 3.5 billion in loans from banks, in addition to funds from the public treasury.
