CAIRO, May 13, 2018 (MENA) - Egypt's Minister of Trade and Industry Tareq Qabil attended on Sunday the signing ceremony of a cooperation protocol between his ministry and multinational ABB power company. The protocol aims at boosting joint cooperation between the ministry and the company in the fields of training and energy use efficiency. The protocol was signed by head of the ministry's Productivity & Vocational Training Department Ahmed Al Ghomazy, rapporteur of the Industrial council for technology & innovation centers engineer Hanan Al Hadary, and managing director of ABB Egypt, north and central Africa Nagy Grigory. The signing ceremony was attended by Swiss Ambassador in Cairo Paul Garnier and Swedish Ambassador in Cairo Jan Thesleff as well as the leaderships of the ministry and the company. In a statement, the minister of trade and industry said the protocol is part of the private sector's efforts to support the plans of the government for industrial development and foreign trade which focus on developing industry, education and technical and vocational training. He also said the protocol focuses on the importance of benefiting from the company in the fields of technology, electricity and robots, expressing his ministry's keenness on making use of all initiatives aiming at rationalizing the use of fuel and energy . He said the ministry applied a program to rationalize electricity in 80 cement, ceramics and iron factories. For his part, Grigory said the protocol is part of his company's keenness on being present in Egypt and north and central African markets. ABB Company CEO Ulrich Spiesshofer in Cairo had said after a meeting with President Abdel Fattah El Sisi in April that his company fully support Egypt's goal of becoming an energy hub and a center for export-oriented industrial production". "For ABB, Egypt is our hub for the Near East, North and Central Africa. We have been present here since 1926 and are proud to invest and provide job opportunities for Egyptians", Spiesshofer noted. In Egypt, ABB have five factories; with its local partners, the total number of people employed by the ABB ecosystem is approximately 3,500, he pointed out. ABB has invested more than 200 million dollars in expanding and upgrading its facilities in the last decade. About 20 percent of ABB's production in Egypt is currently exported; the target is to increase that figure to 25 percent.
