(Photo Courtesy of Cityscape conference\File )
Minister of Housing Mostafa Madbouly discussed with Ethiopian Minister of Transportation Workneh Gebeyehu the means for cooperation in the construction field, particularly focusing on the Arab Contractors Co. to work on building two roads in Ethiopia with the cumulative length of 180 km.
The meeting came on the sidelines of the 18th Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) Summit, in which Egyptian Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb participated, heading the delegation made up of the Egyptian Ministers of Housing, Electricity, and Industry.
Madbouly said that he discussed with the Ethiopian minister encouraging Egyptian construction companies to work on implementing the Ethiopian Transport Ministry’s plan to construct new roads on 50,000 km.
The two ministers discussed the process of Egyptian companies’ participation in constructing the new international airport in Addis Ababa, which the Ethiopian government plans to build by the end of this year.
Madbouly and Gebeyehu discussed implementing a qualifying programme for Ethiopian technical staff next month through training courses in the Housing and Building Research Center (HBRC) and training centres on the construction and building crafts affiliated to Egyptian Ministry of Housing.
The Arab Contractors company is affiliated to the Ministry of Housing and has large investments in Africa amounting to $2bn. The company’s business in Ethiopia is represented in constructing part of the international road project between Cairo and Cape Town with a length of 170 km with a cost of $140m. The second phase of the international road between Cairo and Cape Town project ends in 2016.
Under the slogan “comprehensive and sustainable industrialisation”, the 18th meeting of the COMESA Summit launched on Monday 30 March, and discusses bilateral trade and industry issues on the African continent.
COMESA began as a preferential trade area that aims to grant tariff advantages to each of the signed countries with respect to certain goods, a minimum degree of economic integration, in addition to develop a common market in Africa.
COMESA now consists of 19 countries; namely Egypt, Burundi, Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sudan, Swaziland, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
