The lease-to-own system offers investors greater flexibility by allowing them to lease industrial land under contracts lasting between seven and 21 years, with annual rent set at five percent of the land's price per square metre.
The rent will be reassessed after the seventh and 14th years if investors do not apply to purchase the land.
Investors may apply to purchase the land after one year of actual operation. Any rent already paid will be deducted from the land's purchase price. They may pay 25 percent of the remaining value upfront, with the balance payable in three annual instalments under the applicable regulations.
Egypt has been working to facilitate procedures for investors to encourage the expansion of its industrial sector and address structural challenges in the manufacturing sector, supporting sustainable economic growth as part of its National Industrial Strategy.
The system aims to support industrial investment, reduce the initial financial burden on investors, and enable them to direct available capital and liquidity towards establishing factories, purchasing machinery and equipment, and setting up production lines.
It ensures that industrial land is allocated to serious projects, helping speed up production, expand the manufacturing base, make better use of state assets, and eliminate land speculation and the holding of vacant industrial land.
Applications can be submitted electronically throughout the year through the Egypt Digital Industrial Platform for review by the relevant committee.
Furthermore, the Ministry of Industry is implementing the system as part of a package that includes eight existing measures for offering and allocating industrial land and units to encourage local manufacturing and investment.
Egypt is targeting $100 billion in annual industrial exports by 2030, with exports serving as a key source of foreign currency alongside remittances.
Manufacturing remains a major pillar of economic growth and is expected to contribute 29 percent of growth in FY2026/2027. This has prompted the country to focus on local manufacturing, supply chain integration, and industrial investment.
The ministry has also launched the "Unified Digital System to Support Manufacturers," an integrated platform providing digital industrial services for investors throughout every stage of their projects.
The platform, available at https://mind.gov.eg:8041/, supports project planning and feasibility studies, project establishment and operation, production expansion, product marketing, and access to regional and international markets.
The new digital framework will also include a complaints system with real-time performance indicators, a database of locally produced industrial inputs for factories, a digital marketplace for industrial products, an AI-powered feasibility tool, and support for struggling factories by linking them with financial institutions.
The industrial sector is one of Egypt's five priority sectors and is expected to contribute 64 percent of economic growth in the current fiscal year. Egypt's investment-to-GDP ratio is also expected to reach 17 percent.
Additionally, the initiative aligns with the ministry's digital transformation plan and efforts to boost the competitiveness of local products, increase the local component ratio and the use of raw materials to deepen manufacturing, raise the industrial sector's contribution to GDP from 15 to 20 percent by 2030, and increase non-oil exports to $115.8 billion.
Factory space opened, cost burdens reduced
To increase flexibility in the industrial land market, the ministry has suspended, from mid-August until the end of December this year, a decree that previously prohibited reclaiming industrial land from non-serious owners until they had demonstrated a serious commitment, completed three years of actual operation, or paid the full value of the land.
The suspension allows greater flexibility in transactions involving industrial land among private-sector parties, eliminates unjustified price discrepancies, and facilitates manufacturers' access to the space they need at fair prices without exploitation.
Moreover, in coordination with the Ministry of Housing, a new decision has been issued to simplify permit procedures for the construction and expansion of industrial buildings. The decision reduces the benchmark construction cost under the Unified Building Law by considering only 10 percent of the indicative value.
This reduces the cost from EGP 1,400 to EGP 140 per square metre, easing financial and procedural burdens on investors, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
The Ministry of Industry is also working to shift from horizontal factory construction to vertical expansion to make better use of available industrial land.
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