The chairperson of Zippe industrial plants, Bernd-Holger Zippe, said that Egypt has very high-quality sand, adding, “when I visited Algeria and Italy, I was surprised to know that they export Egyptian sand to use in manufacturing glass.”
The German Arab Chamber of Industry and Commerce held a conference on Wednesday to promote the Glasstec exhibition, which will take place from 23-26 October in Germany with the participation of many international companies.
Zippe said at the conference that German machinery has a very good reputation with high reliability and that Egyptian glass companies successfully cooperated with German machinery companies to utilise their expertise.
“We have many important areas of cooperation such as batch plants and cullet system crushers, control systems, factory cullet, waste glass recycling, and batch chargers,” said the chairperson, adding that Zippe is a family company and the current CEO of the company is from the fourth generation of his family to run the company.
The CEO of Sphinx Glass and board member of Federation of Egyptian Industries (FEI), Mohamed Khattab, said that the Egyptian market has major opportunities to be on the international map of glass manufacturing as an international hub.
“It is not only a dream, but we are really qualified enough to develop the glass industry,” said Khattab, noting that the sector has been remarkably improving since 2010 and production was almost doubled in the last five years. “Until 2010, Egypt was a net importer, but when the industry developed, the market became a net exporter with an optimistic outlook,” said Khattab, adding that Egypt enjoys high-quality sand and sufficient energy supply.
Khattab invited all Egyptian glass companies to participate in international exhibitions, especially the German Glasstec, to promote their products, since such international events are considered an important gateway to globalism.
“We produce 50m tonnes of glass per year. Only three African countries, which are Algeria, South Africa, and Egypt, produce glass and we are among the biggest producers,” added Khattab.
Khattab said Egypt should add value to the sand before exporting it as a raw material and fully benefit from its geographic location and trade agreements, adding, “glass consumption habits are changing and architectural use is rising. The growth of population is an extra advantage.”
CEO of Crystal Asfour Mohamed Abdel Karim said that his company commits the international environmental standards to reserve the good reputation of the company adding, “Crystal Asfour was founded in 1961 as a local company goals globalism and now it exports to 80 countries around the world, so it is a model to follow.”
Crystal Asfour produce 120 tons of crystal per day and focus on developing its human resources and the manufacturing technologies, noted Abdel Karim.
“The founder focused on the quality and management from day one and these are the main reason behind our success story,” added Abdel Karim noting that the company involve with other activities like putting crystal in leather industries and clothes.
The Crystal industry was established by the European while Crystal Asfour managed to be among the main players is internationally, said Abdel Karim.
