Madbouly made his statements during a meeting on Monday evening with representatives of nine foreign and local companies to follow up on the implementation of recently signed memoranda of understanding (MoUs) with these entities to launch new projects in Egypt.

The MoUs cover various sectors including electrical household appliances, fertilisers and chemicals, construction chemicals, car components and braids, ready-made clothes, information technology and medicines and vaccines, according to the statement.

The meeting was attended by representatives of Chinese electrical home appliance company Haier Egypt, Emirati fertiliser company CFC Group, Turkish domestic appliance company Beko Misr, the Italian construction chemicals Group Mabe,  and Japanese car braiding giant Sumitomo Egypt.

Additionally, Japanese auto components manufacturer Yazaki Europe Limited, Egyptian ready-made company Alex Apparels, Egyptian digital solutions and ICT infrastructure provider Benya and Egyptian pharma firm Gennecs.

Madbouly said the planned projects will attract direct investments worth $1 billion and create some 35,000 job opportunities, according to a cabinet statement released following the meeting.

During the meeting, the prime minister was briefed by each company representative on the timetables of their projects. He stressed that that the government will periodically follow up on the projects to immediately remove any obstacles that may face investors.

He expressed his aspiration to witness the openings of the first stages of these projects in the immediate future.

Madbouly asserted that the importance of diversifying manufacturing and production locations is among the lessons learned during the coronavirus pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war.

"The current global crises that resulted from the ramifications of the Russian-Ukrainian crisis – and before that the coronavirus pandemic – was a very important lesson that the manufacturing process should not be concentrated into a specific geographical area in the world, as it is necessary to diversify the manufacturing and production areas," he said.

Meanwhile, Egypt is seeking to attract foreign investors to increase the private sector's participation in public investments, to 65 percent up from 30 percent currently, in the economy to take advantage of the new State Ownership Policy that delineates the state presence in certain sectors of the economy.

According to the policy, the government will exit 15 economic activities across seven sectors over the coming three years, including agriculture, water, sanitation, desalination, telecommunication and IT, retail, food and beverages, as well as construction.

The government will also exit a number of activities across the leather, timber, engineering, jewellery, chemical, textile, printing and pharmaceutical industries.

Billion-dollar investments

Electrical home appliance company Haier Egypt is set to establish a 200,000 square metre industrial complex in the 10th of Ramadan district in the Nile Delta governorate of Sharqia with investments of $130 million.

The project will be implemented in two phases, with the first phase to start production by the beginning of 2024 at a cost of $85 million, General Manager of Haier Egypt Ahmed El-Gendy told the meeting.

The project, El-Gendy said, will be completely self-financed by the company in the form of foreign direct investment, and is set to create some 3,500 direct and indirect job opportunities.

Emirati fertiliser company CFC Group will establish in February an industrial complex for the production of chemicals and fertilisers in Upper Egypt governorate of Qena, as part of the Integrated Industrial Partnership initiative signed recently between Egypt, the UAE, Jordan and Bahrain.

The project will be built over an area of 370,000 square metres in Nagaa Hammadi Industrial District, with total foreign direct investments estimated at $400 million, and a total paid-up capital of $100 million, CEO of the CFC Group Ahmed Khalifa said.

The complex will be the first of its kind in the Middle East and Africa, with a total production capacity of 1.5 million tons, Khalifa noted, adding that it is set to create up to 2,600 direct and indirect jobs.

The project, which will be built in accordance with green economy standards, is meant to meet the needs of the local market, with a large part of the production to be exported, he noted.

Turkish domestic appliance company Beko Misr has recently established a complex in the 10th of Ramadan district over an area of 114,000 square metres to produce 1.1 million units of refrigerators and ovens, with a total investment of $100 million.

The company plans to export 60 percent of its production to Europe, the Middle East and Africa, with production scheduled to start within one year, said Ümit Günel, general manager of Beko Egypt, during Monday's meeting.

Japanese car braiding giant Sumitomo Egypt is to start construction work in three months on its largest factory in Egypt in the 10th of Ramadan district, with investments estimated at $100 million.

The new factory, which is set to be completed within one year and seeks to export 100 percent of the production, will start the exporting process before the end of 2023, Ahmed Magdy, managing director of Sumitomo Egypt, said.

The Japanese company will establish a storage warehouse for raw materials to be used as a distribution hub for North and central African countries, Magdy pointed out.

Additionally, Japanese auto components manufacturer Yazaki Europe Limited is set to begin building a factory for the manufacture of electrical systems for cars in Fayoum governorate on an area of 60,000 square metres, with an initial investment estimated at 20 million euros.

The production process is scheduled to start in December 2024, according to Ahmed Badawi, the managing director of the Japanese company.

The project is expected to create 3,000 job opportunities in the upper Egypt governorate, he added.

Furthermore, local ready-made company Alex Apparels that acquired two ready-made factories is currently developing them in accordance with the European quality standards to reach a production capacity of more than 33 million pieces of clothing annually.

The new factories are expected to employ tens of thousands of workers, Ehab Mohy, the chairman of Alex Apparels, said during the meeting.

Alex Apparels will also establish a textile and dyeing factory with a production capacity of 70 tons of cloth per day and a workforce of 4,000 workers. They will also establish a green clothing factory, with an expected production capacity of 12 million pieces annually and a workforce of 2,500 workers.

Both planned factories are set to start production during 2023, Mohy added.

Also, Egyptian digital solutions and ICT infrastructure provider Benya has concluded 90 percent of the construction work of a fibre-optic cable factory, which is being established within the framework of the country's expansion of data centres.

Ahmed Makki, CEO of Benya, said 80 percent of the firm's equipment has already arrived, and it is expected to start production in November 2022.

The investments in the project's first phase will reach EGP 750 million and will cover 40 percent of local needs, he added.

Egyptian pharma firm Gennecs will establish a factory in Egypt for biopharmaceuticals and vaccines, with an expected cost of about $150 million in foreign direct investments, according to Nepal Dehba, the general manager of Gennecs.

The two-phase project is being implemented by a group of investors from Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia and it aims to localise the vaccine industry, she added.

Gennecs, Dehba said, aims to cover the Egyptian market and export to Africa and the Arab countries with the new factory.

The factory will produce all types of vaccines with a capacity of 115 million doses per year, she noted, asking Madbouly to support the project and facilitate the issuance of the necessary licenses and procedures.