Egypt will set up 16 new industrial zones and will try to attract more factories into the already established areas, President Hosni Mubarak said Monday. "The State will continue its efforts to raise industrial productivity and improve competitive features of products as well as encouraging investment," Mubarak said Monday after opening investment projects in the Upper Egyptian city of Beni Sueif. He added that one of the main objectives of this approach was to raise the nation's industrial growth rate to 10 per cent by 2013. "We will press ahead with building industrial zones with the participation of the private sector to be vehicles for progress as the areas in Sixth of October, Tenth of Ramadan and Sadat Cities,” Mubarak told a rally in Beni Sueif, according to the official Middle East News Agency. He added that the main aim of attracting investment to the country was to curb unemployment and promote exports. Mubarak had opened a big clothes factory in southern Egypt, another for packing vegetables as well as investment ventures in the city earlier in the day. The Ministry of Trade said last month Egypt was expected to attract LE85 billion ($15.5 billion) of investments in the country's new industrial zones. It added that the Ministry would tender 42 million square metres of land for industrial development in the new zones, located in the cities of 10th of Ramadan, Sadat and Bourj el-Arab.
