Fifty new tanneries will be launched in Rubiki in March, bringing the total number of operational tanneries in the leather city to 75. Mahmoud Serg, a member of the board of directors of the Leather Tanning Chamber of the Federation of Egyptian Industries (FEI), said that the tanneries are in the process of construction and internal wiring in preparation for starting work. "By the middle of this year, all tanneries of the first phase will have started actual production in the city," Serg told Daily News Egypt. "This stage includes 82 factories with 322 production units of different capacities, according to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry." Serg said that the first phase of the 180,000 sqm city was completely covered with tanneries that moved from the Magra Al-Oyoun area to Rubiki. He pointed out that the Ministry of Trade and Industry will complete connecting utilities to the second phase of the project in Rubiki, on an area of 135,000 sqm, in March. Mohamed El-Gohary, former chairperson of the Cairo for Investment and Real Estate Development, which is managing the project, said in previous remarks that the total cost of utilities for the second phase amounts to EGP 160m. The Rubiki leather city project is located on an area of 1,629 feddans, distributed over 530 feddans for productive units, 820 feddans of forests, and 282 feddans for treatment plants, evaporation basins, and sanitary waste dumps.
