According to a Ministry of Trade and Industry statement on Tuesday, during the group’s 37th session, chaired by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Industry and Transport Kamel Al-Wazir, requests were reviewed and approved for two projects under the General Authority for Suez Canal Economic Zone (SCZone).
The first project, a chemical manufacturing project worth $1 billion (around EGP 47.43 billion) in investments specializing in pesticides, chlorine products, and alkalis, will be established over an area of 320,000 square meters.
The cabinet has urged the state’s export councils to prepare plans to raise non-oil exports by 15–20 percent annually through 2030. Exports of chemical products and fertilizers, a key part of Egypt’s non-oil sector, went up 8 percent to $8.6 billion in the first 11 months of 2025, as the non-oil private sector continued to improve by the end of the year.
The second approved project is a tire manufacturing project worth $291 million (around EGP 13.80 billion), over an area of 380,000 square metres. No timeline for either project has been disclosed.
The SCZone has attracted around $13 billion in foreign investment over the past three years. In recent weeks, Egypt has signed a flurry of industrial agreements for industrial and manufacturing projects in the SCZone with Norwegian, Chinese, and Qatari firms, worth over $3.15 billion in total investments.
In a separate decision, the ministerial group issued three licenses for the construction of new cement plants, with a single production line to be established for each project, along with future expansion plans for several unnamed existing cement plants.
The location of the new plants has not been disclosed, but they are scheduled for completion within one year of the production date.
These projects are part of larger plans to increase production in the cement sector to meet local market needs and to prepare for any surge in demand on the back of Egyptian plans for the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip.
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