Coal shipments in Alexandria's Dekheila port (Photo courtesy of Egyptian Against Coal).
Egypt expects to see $30 billion worth of investments in the coal industry in the coming five years, Investment Minister Ashraf Salman said on Tuesday.
The government is targeting an output of 8,000 megawatts of electricity from coal over the next ten years, as part of a plan to raise electricity production by 30,000 megawatts nationwide in the same period, said Salman, according to state news agency MENA.
In April, the government approved amendments to the environment law allowing for the use of coal for power generation.
The government is interested in depending on coal as an alternative energy source for electricity production, said Salman, speaking at the 2015 Egyptian Coal Conference.
Egypt suffers from an energy shortage that has hit production in the manufacturing industry and leads to frequent power blackouts, especially in the summer.
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