Source: Ahram Online Egypt’s government aims to increase the industrial sector's contribution to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) from 16 to 20 percent, Deputy Prime Minister for Industrial Development and Minister of Industry and Transport Kamel El-Wazir said Thursday. El-Wazir outlined a seven-pillar strategy to achieve this goal, which centres on reducing reliance on imports and meeting local market needs and production requirements by encouraging domestic manufacturers and attracting foreign investors. It also includes expanding the industrial base to increase exports, particularly in green and electronic industries, and improving the technical specifications of Egyptian industries. The strategy prioritizes rescuing struggling factories by providing swift approvals for factory restarts, listening to owners of idle facilities to find solutions, and granting technical support to improve capabilities and obtain international conformity certificates, El-Wazir added, during the graduation ceremony of students from El-Sewedy Technical Academy (STA). He emphasized the importance of qualifying the workforce through the ministry's training entities, research centres, and Egyptian universities to improve their professionalism, eventually reflecting on the quality of the industry and its export potential to increase the hard currency. Industrial advancement plan The plan will be implemented in two phases. The first phase includes immediate approval of decisions that contribute to solving the problems of struggling factories to quickly restart them and holding community discussions with the owners of idle factories to study ways to rehabilitate and operate them. It involves launching a national programme under the initiative "Your Factory Always Works," inviting all struggling factories to submit their problems to the ministry to resolve them, according to El-Wazir. This comes with the launch of the "Industrial Digital Egypt" platform to allow investors to apply directly through the platform to facilitate procedures, and an "Investor Service and Support Office" at the ministry to monitor and facilitate licensing procedures in coordination with the Industrial Development Authority (IDA). The second phase focuses on attracting foreign and domestic investments and supporting cooperation with the private sector regarding major projects related to developing industrial zones according to the highest international standards, he added. Additionally, efforts will be made to ensure product quality to open export markets and to focus on developing industries in the governorates and villages as part of preparing an industrial map for Egypt under the title "Egypt's Industrial Map," he explained. Job opportunities The minister promised to work on doubling job opportunities in industrial complexes for small- and medium-sized projects to encompass 7 million workers by 2030 instead of the current 3.5 million, representing 13 percent of the workforce. This can be achieved "by training and qualifying technical labour to match factory needs through the Productivity and Vocational Training Department (PVTD), which has 41 centres in 17 governorates, in addition to the Technology Competency Centre (TCC)," he added. He explained that the ministry is studying participation with the private sector in managing vocational training centres that grant graduates industrial apprenticeship diplomas in a private sector manner, allocating a school for each activity or specific factory to benefit from its graduates after graduation. Coordination with relevant ministers in the government is taken into account to increase the number of applied technology schools to 200 across the country, up from 52 schools in 14 governorates, as announced by the Ministry of Education and Technical Education, according to El-Wazir.
THE AUTHOR: Ahram Online
