Log in

Login to your account

Username *
Password *
Remember Me
×

Warning

JUser: :_load: Unable to load user with ID: 878

Mohammed Abdul Karim, Executive Director of Industrial Modernisation Centre for "Youm 7": 400 billion pounds will be spent in the industrial sector within “Hayah Karima”

  • Wednesday, 22 September 2021 12:19
Mohammed Abdul Karim, Executive Director of Industrial Modernisation Centre for "Youm 7": 400 billion pounds will be spent in the industrial sector within “Hayah Karima”

Presidential initiative products 100% Egyptian and no dependence on imports
- 1800 services for the development of national industry 2021
- Identifying 132 HS Code, for import substitutions

British Energy Institute recommends the generalization of “Egypt PV” project to the world
In his first interview, Engineer Mohamed Abdul Karim, Executive Director of the Modernisation Centre, revealed huge returns to the national industry as a result of the initiative "Hayat Karima" over the next three years, achieving a sales movement in the sector ranging from 350 billion to 400 billion pounds, as a result of relying on industrial products 100% without relying on imported products. To the
text of the dialogue:
Where have the government's efforts reached in "Hayah Karima" initiative and the initiative's effects on the industrial sector reached?

The initiative "Hayah Karima" bringing life back to society, and for the industrial sector, the initiative costs 700 billion pounds of which about 60% products, i.e. there are from 350 to 400 billion pounds will be spent on industrial products, and thus spend these amounts within the industrial sector helps to increase gdp and revive the industrial sector, especially since there are clear directives from President Abdel Fattah El Sisi to be relying on projects "Hayah Karima" on national products and local industry and not resort to imported products.
We are talking here about spending between 350 and 400 billion pounds within the industrial sector, during the next three years, and this represents a golden opportunity for manufacturers to recover productive sectors, unlike the fact that the initiative is social, but it offers a decent life for the industrial sector, and in light of the crisis of Corona and the damage to the world trade movement, «Hayah Karima» opened the door to the growth of industry strongly in Egypt.


So what is the role of the Industrial Modernisation Centre in "Hayah Karima" initiative?

The role of the Centre in confining advanced industrial companies within the initiative «Hayah Karima», it provides 160 industrial companies, there are other companies, and a number of companies, to supply the initiative, and our role is to develop these companies that need improvement in their performance, for example a company that needs to improve the cost of production, so we help them in this, and training Technical employment, the descent of villages and places to link the needs of "Hayah Karima" to the provision of employment, the studies we conduct through 15 branches in the provinces reveal the needs in the villages within the initiative, training young people in villages to qualify them for the labor market, and the development of employment serves on the initiative of "Hayah Karima".
In your opinion. What are the most prominent sectors benefiting from participating in "Hayah Karima"?

The engineering sector is most involved through the production of drainage, water, electricity and other goods, the chemical sector as well and building materials through paving, roads and unit construction, and sectors based on agricultural activities, because the production of villages is limited to see industries that can rise in villages «Hayah Karima», for example a village based on the production of grapes, here we resort to stimulate the raisin industry in it, the initiative gives a great opportunity to develop industry and productive villages.
Have financial provisions been allocated for studies in "Hayah Karima"?

The nature of the Industrial Modernisation Centre, training and rehabilitation of companies and export development, the initiative opens a new horizon for new beneficiaries of the services of Industrial Modernization Center, and if we find new services that can be added within the activities of the Center, and its goal is to support industrial activity, we will add them immediately, and recently services have been added to the digital industries and electronics, and we have begun to cooperate with the Japanese University, the Academy of Scientific Research and many entities, and a new sector of energy services.
Craft industries are one of the targets of "Hayah Karima". How will this sector be developed?

The craft industries are witnessing great interest from the country, and here in the Industrial Modernisation Centre we have «Creative Egypt» that aims to activate the industries of textiles, shells, carpets, pottery, clothing and handmade, we are working on the development of industries and opening the door to marketing them, and we launched a website to promote their products, as well as special programs to support women in the handicraft sector.
Is there monitoring of the number of companies and factories benefiting from Industrial Modernisation services?

There are companies that have benefited within "Hayah Karima" initiative, and other companies that have obtained Industrial Modernisation services outside the initiative, there are factories that have benefited from the services of the Industrial Modernisation Centre for earlier periods, we have limited the duration of registration to obtain the services of the Center, and during the current year 2021, 1800 diverse services were provided at the level of 600 to 700 companies, and meetings were held in industrial areas and industrial and commercial rooms to see the real need of the national
industry.

Let's go to the Egyptian import replacement file. We would like to know where we are in this file and are there a certain number of goods in the import replacement file?

We provided very good results in the import replacement file, and thousands of goods and production inputs were counted in all sectors, and here we focused, for example, on products, inputs and supplies with imports that exceed $10 million, and we started studying them and came up with 132 different import items. These import items were analyzed to see how to deal, and we divided the items into full investment opportunities that need to attract investors from abroad, existing investment expansions, or new domestic investments in order to deal with the 132 items by either manufacturing them locally or expanding the deepening of existing manufacturing.
So import replacement is by attracting the investments we need or expanding an existing investment. Have efforts succeeded in attracting investors to the most needy sectors?

We coordinate with the General Authority for Investment, Planning, Finance and others, and we put import items in the form of investment opportunities and work to promote them, for example we import wood for 1.3 billion dollars as different types, and we focused on the type that captures the bulk of the bill for the import of wood such as MDF wood, which represents 60% of import invoice, and here we say that we need an investment opportunity in the sector manufacturing MDF wood, so we prepared a fact sheet on all the needs of the investment opportunity and its details across different entities, with the aim of attracting investment for this opportunity, and only lacks the wide promotion of these investment opportunities, and here is the essence of import replacement, the investment opportunity here will provide a product for the internal market or a production input that reduces imports, and this controls the trade balance, the investment opportunity can also be a means of increasing the export earnings.
Internal companies have begun work on investment opportunities resulting from the inventory of imports within the Life of Import Replacement Initiative, for example, recently with the announcement of the botagas safety specification, we worked to monitor the need of the industry in this field to manufacture safety "Bluff" through detailed and accurate information about the manufacture of this productive input.
Is there an investment return from the imported product replacement file?

Of course, the proof is that exports increased to 22% during 2021 in the light of the Corona crisis, where did these industrial exports come from except through real investment opportunities in the Egyptian market, all efforts in the file of import replacement and deepening exports is due to the economy as a whole, the increase in exports is the mirror of the national industry, and there is a clear decrease in import declines as a result of increasing and providing domestic alternatives, and we have promising manufacturing sectors such as engineering, food, textiles and chemical.
For years we have been talking about deepening the national industry. Where did we get in this file?
Import replacement is a type of industrial deepening, deepening and localization of industry and technology transfer, although there is a difference in the nature of the three terms, there is a close link between them, for example the automotive sector worked to manufacture part of the components of production this deepening, but the localization of the industry means creating our own internal technology that can be dealt with from start to finish, but technology transfer means importing technology from abroad, and there is integration between the three terms, deepening the industry is related to the replacement of imports, manufacturing any imported product within Import replacement, this is a deepening of the industry, and we have sectors where we succeeded in raising the local component to 80% such as electrical and household appliances, while the glass industry has increased the Egyptian component strongly as well as clothing, and we have succeeded strongly in deepening these industries in those sectors.
We move on to the solar file. How did the solar panel rollout program ease the pressure on the national electricity grid?

The Egyptian Small Solar Cell Systems Project received the first place from the British Energy Institute, which recommended the generalization of the Egyptian model in all countries of the world, because we reached the implementation of the project in archaeological buildings, hotels, schools and the project housing Egypt and at Cairo airport, and we typed very largely besides its application in 15 provinces with 115 stations, and the United Nations Development Program, decided to increase the duration of the project for one and a half years in Egypt and this is unusual.
The file of increasing Egyptian exports. Are there programs that the Industrial Modernisation Centre is working on?

Regards to the Industrial Modernisation , contacts and coordination are constantly being made with export councils, trade representative offices and relevant entities in the export file, and we have prepared a research paper on export barriers, especially for the African market, and indeed the export support program has been issued with new incentives, such as increasing the shipping rate for Africa to 80% and introducing the pharmaceutical sector within the export support program, and there is extensive work under the guidance of Minister of Industry and Trade Nevin Jameh to introduce new companies for the export file.