General Manager at Egypt TEDA SEZone Development Nahla Emad, told Daily News Egypt that the company has signed eight contracts with investors at its SEZone expansions in Ain Soukhna.
Emad added that the main sectors that the Tianjin Economic-Technological Development Area (TEDA) is focusing on are textile, new building materials, plastic products, logistics, chemicals, and automotive. “We have signed contracts with Dayun for motorcycle and heavy trucks, El Sokhna logistics for car logistics, Gold Time for plastics, Leichu for textiles, Xiamen for non-woven products and many others,” she noted.
The investment environment in Egypt currently is getting better than before, adding that 2017 was a very good year for the Egyptian economy, and that the same could be said about the first few months of 2018. “There was good growth. People had very high expectations, and economists generally respond to expectations and signals,” remarked the general manager.
The new investment law—in addition the law 83 of 2002—has given a lot of preferential policies, and motivation to foreign and domestic investors to go through this project with high confidence, and low risk, declared Emad.
“When TEDA won the bid for the 6 km2 area, our focus was business attraction and marketing based on the preferential policies of law 83 of 2002, especially articles 37 and 38, involving the lowest income tax, and the corporate tax, because it is a special economic zone, but afterwards, these tax policies were cancelled and now the special economic zone enjoys and operates with the same tax as the rest of Egypt. We have started our marketing again, only this time we have eliminated the past policy,” pointed out Emad.
According to our contract, TEDA must deliver the 6 km2 expansions on three phases, with 2 km2 allotted for each phase, said Emad, noting that the first 2 km2 were received near the end of 2015. TEDA has completed the entire infrastructure and utilities in one year, then the company began to sign the end-user contract with several investors.
“According to the contract, we have to finish each phase within five years, but TEDA’s concept and strategy involve finishing the whole project within 10 years maximum, and continuing with other lands and areas,” noted Emad.
Additionally, Emad said that COSCO Europe GmbH intends to invest and construct an International Bonded Logistics Park in the TEDA Zone, to enrich the supporting logistic facilities of Ain Sokhna.
Daily News Egypt received a document upon request from TEDA, showing that by the end of February 2017, COSCO-Shipping had a total of 311 container ships, with an aggregate carrying capacity of 1.64m TEUs, up 97.6% year-over-year, ranking fourth in the world, in terms of the scale of container fleets. Moreover, the company holds orders for 33 container ships, and the COSCO Shipping Lines has a total registered capital of ¥15.96bn.
Currently, COSCO Shipping Lines operates 332 international and domestic shipping routes, including 209 international services, involving international feeder services, 37 domestic services, 86 Yangtze River, and Pearl River shipping services, covering 254 ports, in 79 countries, and regions worldwide, according to the document obtained by Daily News Egypt.
The document noted that COSCO’s International Bonded Logistics Park in the TEDA Zone will be established with investments worth $25m, and will provide over 200 job opportunities.
The Egyptian strategic development idea of the Suez Canal Corridor, which is deemed as ‘the Great Egyptian Dream,’ is in line with the Chinese strategic concept of the Belt and Road initiative, in addition to the projected planning of the China-Egypt Suez Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone, announced Emad. “Our zone enjoys the benefits of both countries’ strategies, which increases our competitive advantage compared to others in Egypt,” added the company’s general manager.
TEDA is the best national-level development zone in China. Since 1997, TEDA has been the champion among all the other development zones, mentioned Emad.
By the end of 2016, TEDA had introduced 5,613 foreign capital projects from 55 countries and regions. The accumulative total number of registered domestic enterprises is 14,429, with registered capital being ¥711.9bn, according to company data.
