German company Siemens Mobility has partnered with Egypt in building an electric, safe, and sustainable railway system, comprising high-speed, regional and freight trains and a new rail network of 2000 kilometres.
An agreement on the second tranche of this investment totalling €12bn was signed on Saturday 28 May 2022, in the presence of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, Siemens CEO Roland Busch, and Minister of Transport Kamel Al-Wazir.
Ambassador Frank Hartmann thanked the President for the longstanding trust the Egyptian government puts in German technology and congratulated the Egyptian government and the consortium led by Siemens on this ground breaking agreement.
As part of the project, Siemens will provide a fully electrified rail network, as well as state of the art high speed trains of the kind used in Germany as the Intercity Express (ICE), regional and freight trains. Its investment totals €12bn. Egyptian companies Orascom and Arab Contractors will construct railway stations, tunnels, and bridges and will be engaged in groundwork.
Ambassador Hartmann commented: “The construction of a modern, safe, eco-friendly and affordable railway system for millions of Egyptians through a German company is a historic milestone in our long-lasting bilateral relationship, which celebrates its 70th anniversary this year. Germany has always been a partner and friend for the modernization of Egypt.”
The project will create around 45,000 local jobs. It also puts Egypt at the vanguard of climate change mitigation, in which rail travel plays an important role, lowering emissions by 70-85% due to electrification. The high-speed railway is Egypt’s largest infrastructure project to-date. It also is the biggest single project in the 175 years of Siemens’ existence.
Germany heavily engages with Egypt in infrastructure projects, as well as projects on education, vocational training and energy supply like the gas-fired power stations, likewise in partnership with Siemens, due to which Egypt today has stable electricity and is a net exporter of electricity. These areas are the foundations of Egypt’s further industrialisation and modernisation. Chancellor Scholz, himself at the World Economic Forum in Davos and addressing the ceremony via video, thanked the representatives of the Egyptian government for the trust they have put in German engineering on this route.
Siemens is already Egypt’s partner for the first tranche of this railway project, signed in September 2021, for a high-speed link connecting the Mediterranean cities Marsa Matrouh and Alexandria via Cairo and the New Administrative Capital with the Red Sea port of Ain Sokhna. This second tranche will extend the line via Luxor and Aswan to Abu Simbel, creating a rail network of about 2000 kilometres in total.
