Egypt’s Suez Canal Economic Zone (SCZone) recently signed 5 agreements with a number of private sector companies with investments exceeding $200 million. Through the partnerships, SCZone aims to support collaboration between the public and private sectors.
Agreements
The Egyptian cabinet issued a statement explaining that the agreements include several projects in different sectors. The five framework agreements cover the following projects:
- PET plastic recycling project by a subsidiary of Youssef Allam Group with a $15 million investment
- Ready-made clothing factory project with investments exceeding $150 million
- Textile and dyeing project by Jade Textile with investments of $65 million
- Pharmaceutical factory by Orchidia Pharmaceutical Industries with over EGP1 billion in investments
- Wood industry project by El-Hamd company with EGP129 million in investments
Agreements’ objectives
SCZone’s Chairman Waleed Gamal Eldien explained that the agreements aim to maximize the benefit of the state’s resources and provide encouraging and supportive incentives to investors. Through the framework agreements, the zone aims to support the projects and conduct feasibility studies. Moreover, SCZone seeks to participate with a share in these projects, in exchange for the value of the usufruct of the lands.
Gamal Eldien also stated that the 5 agreements are the beginning of the 50 agreements currently under negotiations.
Last year, the CEO of SCZone, Ahmed Saad, announced that SCZone attracted investments worth $1.3 billion during the first 4 months of the current fiscal year 2023/2024.
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Attracting investments
In a statement, Saad added that SCZone aims to attract investments ranging between $3.9 billion and $4 billion by the end of the current fiscal year, which begins in Egypt from the beginning of July 2023 to the end of June 2024. He added that most of the investments SCZone attracted came from Egypt, Europe, East Asia, and China.
Besides, SCZone is mainly interested in the Chinese market. Therefore, it will organize three visits to the country during 2024. This comes in light of China becoming the largest investment-exporting country.
Saad added that Egypt’s hosting of the climate summit in 2022 helped the authority promote investments in SCZone.
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