Cairo – Egypt’s General Authority for Investments and Free Zones (GAFI) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Japan’s Sumitomo to open the company’s largest factory in the world in the Arab country. Sumitomo will have an industrial plant for motor vehicle electrical harnesses in a 150,000 square meter area in the industrial city of Ramadan 10th.
The MoU was signed between the advisor and executive director of GAFI, Mohamed Abdel Wahab, and the managing director of Sumitomo Egypt, Ahmed Magdy, alongside Egyptian Prime Minister Moustafa Madbouly, the Japanese Ambassador to Cairo, Oka Hiroshi, and other executives (pictured above).
The Egyptian Prime Minister said the government is committed to providing full support and facilities for the installation and operation of the facility, following the new incentives and benefits approved by the government for investors, aimed at encouraging local industrial development and bringing modern technologies to Egypt.
Sumitomo already manufactures electrical harnesses for motor vehicles and exports them to major automobile manufacturers in Europe and the Middle East. The company has eight plants in Egypt spread across the Port Said province and the cities of Ramadan 10th and October 6th. According to Wahab, the company employs 10,000 workers in the country, and the number is expected to double after the expansion.
Mirsha Serbo, COO of Sumitomo Europe Limited, said the company’s decision to increase its investments in Egypt reflected confidence in the country’s investment environment and the intention to benefit from the government’s recently announced investment promotion measures. The project will take a year and a half to be fully implemented. Production will be geared towards exports.
Translated by Ahmed El Nagari & Elúsio Brasileiro
