Minister of Finance Mohamed Maait stressed that the presidential initiative to replace old vehicles with new ones powered by natural gas is a project that would greatly aid with transforming the economy into a green one by opening new horizons for development partnership with the private sector.
This can easily help improve the economy, generate jobs, and make it easy for citizens to own cars with great credit facilities, he added.
“We aim to encourage the local car industry by increasing the production capacity of companies operating in Egypt, as the initiative requires that the percentage of local components in these cars to be over 45%,” the minister said.
Maait also said that the government is proceeding with the implementation of presidential mandates to expand the base of beneficiaries of the initiative by including more governorates. He noted that the state’s public treasury had to bear EGP 260m for the green incentive for nearly 12,000 new cars that were allocated to citizens who completed the procedures on the website, including 11,500 passenger cars and taxis and 500 microbuses.
He explained that with the beginning of the second year of the presidential initiative to replace old vehicles, registration was opened on the website for citizens who own cars that were manufactured in 2002 or older.
He pointed out that this initiative aims to motivate investors to expand green economy projects in order to help raise economic growth rates and achieve comprehensive and sustainable development by recycling old scrap car components.
This process is done safely through environmentally friendly technological means. They are destroyed to become raw materials for other industries in a way that contributes to localising modern technologies and new industrial activities, in addition to reducing environmental pollution and harmful carbon emissions from old worn-out cars.
For his part, Amgad Mounir — the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Vehicle Replacement Fund at the Ministry of Finance and Executive Director of the initiative — said that the total valid requests completed on the initiative’s website so far amounted to 36,500 by the end of last December.
More than 12,000 cars that were manufactured over 20 years ago were scrapped. He added that the Chery Arrizo 5 has also been included among the new vehicles that are part of the initiative to meet the needs of citizens.
He also pointed out that the initiative’s management, in cooperation with concerned authorities, is keen on overcoming any obstacles that may hinder the companies’ increase in the production of locally made cars with the aim of encouraging national industry.
Tarek Awad, the Official Spokesman for the Initiative at the Ministry of Finance, stressed that there is continuous follow-up on the requests received on the initiative’s website (www.gogreenmasr.com). All suggestions made by citizens are being studied and implemented and any technical modifications necessary are made to make the registration process easier.
He explained that coordination is taking place with the concerned authorities — especially the ministries of commerce, industry, and petroleum — to ensure that new models of cars meet the technical requirements required for the initiative by conducting the scheduled tests.
