The fourth annual automotive sector summit, Egypt Automotive, held on 10 and 11 December at the Cairo International Convention & Exhibition Centre in Nasr City, resulted in 12 recommendations to advance the Egyptian automotive sector that severely suffered in 2017 and saw a decline in sales of over 30%.
Summit Manager Mohamed Aboul Fotouh said that the summit has witnessed discussions between over 50 speakers, from both the private and public sector, in addition to foreign experts’ participation in workshops. The summit was attended by over 700 participants, including decision-makers, executive heads, and professionals in the sector and feed-in industries, which the summit allocated three workshops for.
Aboul Fotouh stressed that the recommendations of the conference will be sent to the sponsoring agencies of the summit, which include the cabinet, the General Authority for Suez Canal Economic Zone, in addition to other entities related to the sector, most prominently the Ministries of Trade and Industry, Investment, and Finance, represented inby the Customs and Tax Authorities.
The recommendations included demanding the government offer incentives for the automotive industry through speeding up the approval of the strategy for automotive manufacturing and creating new incentives for feed-in industries, as well as explaining the government’s vision for the automotive industry. The recommendations also included demanding the government utilise information technology to fight fraud, as well as control the trade of spare parts through connecting agents, customs, and maintenance centres, in addition to recognising original spare parts through barcodes then promoting their use through mobile applications.
Participants in the summit have stressed the importance of utilising the global trend towards electric cars and approving special incentives to invest in them, as well as preparing an entire study to operate electric cars in the New Administrative Capital and attract international companies to invest in the initiative to make the city project the first capital in the world to depend on electric vehicles.
The summit has demanded reconsidering the customs law and the possible facilitations to operate and activate electric cars. It also demanded encouraging industrial engineering companies to register on the Nile Exchange (NILEX). It further demanded the government offer technical support to these companies to encourage them to operate based on the rules of good governance and changing from the family business pattern to joint exchange companies on the Egyptian Exchange (EGX).
The summit pointed out the importance of working on opening export markets after supporting the industry and the importance of government communication with the private sector more effectively before making decisions that could impact it. The summit also pointed out the importance of forming a Supreme Council for Automotive Industries, while taking into consideration the value added from local components, in a way that suits global partnership agreements.
Recommendations included the importance of applying more safety standards followed globally for assembling and manufacturing cars, as well as setting controls to regulate the trade of used cars in a way that brings revenues to the state while maintaining the rights of both sellers and buyers.
